Mischief Acts, page 24
Rise above it. Richard may build actual bridges, out in the world. But she builds the ones at home. By cooking squid.
She gets up and peers out through the blind. Tom is standing by the holly bush, chewing on a ham roll. He is glistening again.
*
Downhill from Richard, on the lower path, a group of volunteers in hi-vis vests are sawing at a dead hornbeam. ‘A managed wood thrives, better than one left to its own devices,’ their leader is explaining, screwing up his eyes against the sun that stabs down through the canopy. Richard’s back, as purple as his neck now, is warmed in dapples by this sun. The blood on the back of his head has crusted over in the night, and stuck his thin hair to his scalp.
His hair was still long when he met Kate, and still mostly brown. The loss of it, baldness creeping across his pate, was an insult and a worry. Tom’s hair, he had noticed more and more, stayed thick as a brush. He was sure Kate noticed too, and admired it, preferred it. But this no longer bothers him. He is immune to such insecurities, here in the wood. Nobody is looking at his head; not the volunteers fussing down on the main path, not the flies, which are concentrating on the congealed blood near the wound, circling, whirring, taking turns to feast. Richard is so stiff all over now, he wouldn’t be able to bat them away if he wanted to.
He lets them go on, all through the afternoon, and why not? It’s a beautiful day, to be lying amidst the trees, more carefree than he has ever been. He should have done this more often, before. He’d had time, especially once Laura was grown and had sprinted off into the world, not looking back, hardly ever coming back. The number of times he’d walked her through this little tangled strip of forest as a child, trying to instil the love of nature he thought essential, showing her the wood could be a haven – as long as she was only ever in it in daylight, and having told someone where she was going. He was so anxious that she should feel this, he hardly stopped to feel it himself. Always here, beyond the fence. He could see the waving treetops from his study. But he let himself be distracted, by work, by Kate, by Tom swaggering up and down the lawn on Kate’s endless garden updates, by those Fitzgerald girls next door. He loved the wood, and he neglected it.
Well, not now. It is embracing him, forgiving him. It has one wooden arm slung across his back, companionable. He has not even brushed away the leaves that are scattered across his jeans now, green and yellow, bright in the sunlit air.
*
When she’s parked back in the drive, with a boot full of marine delicacies and wines to match, she checks her eyes in the vanity mirror. Do with a tidy-up. She rummages for a cotton bud and dabs about. Wipes some fluff off a lipstick and smears it on with a finger. Who for? Richard. Of course, Richard. On the condition that he’s in.
It’s almost four. She didn’t dawdle on purpose at the supermarket. But she can’t walk past a tasting table. Or wine samples. She drove carefully. As she struggles into the kitchen with four bags in each hand, she sees that the counter, and the island, and quite a bit of the floor, are covered with more shopping bags. She smiles. Ah, Richard. That’s where he’s been. And without the car, too. Meant to surprise her. Make amends. And he has.
‘Tom! You made me jump.’
He is lurking just inside the patio doors. ‘It only came half an hour ago.’ He nods at the bags. ‘I just put the frozen stuff in your freezer. Wasn’t sure about the rest.’ He gestures at the rows of kitchen cupboards, sheepish.
‘Isn’t Richard …?’ She turns to look back down the hall, and sees the order receipt by the microwave. Home delivery. Her cheeks are burning again.
‘Sorry,’ Tom says. ‘I can give you a hand, now?’
‘No, no. You get on. Or actually,’ she bends to look at her watch, still holding her plastic bags. Hopefully her hair will fall over her cheeks. ‘Beer o’clock? Or wine, maybe? You must be parched. I am.’ He actually looks sorry for her. Unbearable. ‘Come on. It’ll keep.’ Smile. Put bags down, gently. ‘And I want to hear about this “flow” business.’ Her laugh comes out wrong but she strides with purpose to the fridge. Cool, on her face. Blink a bit, while she’s got the door open.
‘Sorry, Kate. Got to get going.’
She could just climb into the fridge, close the door behind her. Eat all the cheese, doze off and freeze to death in her sleep.
*
The part of the wood where Richard lies is in shadow now. Tom has just cut down the slope instead, to catch the last bit of afternoon sunshine at the wood’s edge before looping back up to number 12. The caravan is always shady in the evening. It’s a shame, really, but on a warm day it’s still pleasant to bring out two folding chairs and sit either side of the narrow door. Richard and Tom, shooting the breeze for an hour after work. They did it only a few days ago, when Tom had finished digging the hole for the pond. Richard took two bottles of beer from the kitchen and they smuggled them out through the back gate, then walked in silence through the wood to number 12. Richard has a kind of anxious respect, or is it envy, for Tom’s ability to be silent when they are in the wood together. He doesn’t feel the need to prattle, like Kate does, and Kate has passed him the habit, like some kind of noise virus.
That afternoon they sat in the folding chairs, and stared at the back of the house. The owner of number 12, Charles Dent, never returned from his city job before nine at night. They had the place to themselves. Halfway through the beers, Richard couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
‘So, it stayed a one-off?’ he asked.
‘Not exactly.’
Tom had told him the week before about sleeping with Megan Fitzgerald. Richard had made him swear he wouldn’t do it again. When the parents found out, he’d warned, they wouldn’t be inviting him round for a sherry. They’d tell Charles Dent some story, and Tom would be kicked out of the caravan. Most likely they’d do the same with the neighbours. He’d lose clients, his living.
‘It was only sex,’ Tom said.
‘She’s eighteen,’ Richard had replied, as if that was all that needed to be said. He hadn’t been a hundred per cent sure he wasn’t jealous. He’d tried not to think about Megan Fitzgerald naked, aroused, manipulated into various sexual positions by Tom’s strong hands. She hadn’t made it easy for him either, sunbathing on the lawn with her sister next door, in bikinis so small they required binoculars to see them. Not that he’d actually done that.
When they took up their conversation again, back outside the caravan, he tried to push away those images, and be the sensible friend. ‘You can’t have a real relationship with an eighteen-year-old,’ he said.
‘I didn’t have a real one with my wife. At least now there’s sex.’
It sounded so brash, coming from Tom. His reserve had been broken, perhaps by a giggling, wriggling naked girl.
‘It’s not everything,’ Richard said. But Tom was quiet again. Richard imagined he was thinking about it, the sex, not the lack of it with his ex-wife. Kate might not be a nymphomaniac, exactly, but she had this energy that still thrilled him, even after twenty-three years. It was too much, sometimes, but it was the one thing about her that stayed constant, glorious. Laura had it too, he could see that, even as he found it uncomfortable, the recognition of an attractive woman in his own daughter.
‘Better get back,’ he said, when his beer bottle was empty. ‘Good luck.’
Tom nodded.
Lying in the wood alone now, Richard has found a way to be silent. He has no urge to prattle, and makes no comment as Tom passes on the lower path and then turns back, towards the Fitzgeralds’ gate.
*
If you don’t know where he is, why don’t you just call him? her mother’s voice snaps in her head. Because it’s conceding. It weakens her position, shows she’s worried. Still, she taps out a text. Terse. Informative. Got squid for supper. Deletes the ‘got’. Adds kisses. Send. Richard’s phone beeps, somewhere under the shopping bags. Typical.
She pokes about amongst the deliveries. All the stuff she asked him to order, for the weekend. Laura’s favourite things, celebratory fizz. Why didn’t he even get back in time for this? Let her do the unpacking, is that it? Indirect punishment. She pours out some of the white wine, Picpoul, which has warmed up but to hell with it. The last time he stayed away this long was, when? Not sure. He has done it, though. And what did they argue about that time? God knows. Chores, probably. Or money. Or whether to put in a sodding garden pond. Not that those things are ever what it’s really about.
Out in the garden. Fresh air. Clear head. Fine, if he wants to take time out. Play the hermit. If that’s what it takes to sort out his sorry male brain, refill the ego balloon. Whatever. But he shouldn’t make her suffer with him. She’s not the one who was offended, who can’t take a joke. Her equilibrium wasn’t even disturbed. That’s what pissed him off most. That’s why he’s doing this. He takes everything way too seriously. It should be him talking to Tom about ‘flow’. Whatever the hell it is.
She inspects the dent, the future pond. It looks too small, too shallow. Tom. God, he couldn’t get out fast enough. Maybe it was the lipstick that did it. That and the flushing. What did she say? Beer o’clock. Sounds desperate, even to her. He’s an enigma, that Tom. Mysterious. Perhaps that’s what makes him attractive. But mystery is just pseudo-charisma. A trick by boring people to make themselves alluring. Was Tom boring, before? He’s vague, in her memories. Hovering at the edge of parties. Nodding over dinner. What did he ever have to say for himself? Richard never shuts up. Probably Tom could never get a word in edgeways. What kind of friendship is that?
She listens. To her friends, to Richard. To her daughter. She’s good at it. Because she’s a woman? Or because she’s her. But she hasn’t heard something. She’s missed something. What has Richard been carrying off with him to Nik’s house, or to Tom’s caravan? She considers the obvious options: illness, affair, debt. All three disaster scenarios flash through her head while she empties her glass.
You’re being melodramatic, as usual, her mother snipes. She’s right. It’s easier to admit, now her mother is dead, and exists only as a bossy voice without the X-ray gaze.
The frozen squid has melted. Which is fine, because she’s going to cook it. She’ll whip through some more exam papers while it simmers. She’s not waiting. She’s busy. And it’s a job best done with wine in hand.
She times herself. An average of 3.5 minutes per essay for the first six Of Mice and Mens. She’s actually faster! And she’s not listening out for the front door at all. It takes too much concentration. Stewed squid is best after two hours’ cooking. He’s got plenty of time.
Halfway through the ninth Of Mice and Men, it strikes her. Ask Nikesh. Check up, basically. But why shouldn’t she? She’s the wife. She didn’t sign up to be Mrs Richard Berryman, and endure this yokel surname, for nothing. If she acted concerned, it wouldn’t look like he was in trouble. No old nag, that Kate, just loves her husband. Is that what they’d say about her? The omniscient ‘they’? It’s true. It’s why she stays married.
Not as much as I love you. That’s what their first arguments were about. Teasing at the beginning. A game. But, many a true word. She stares down at the fat handwriting on the script in front of her.
It’s what her mother used to say. When she was much younger, young enough for true heartbreak. ‘In every relationship,’ her mother said, as if it was obvious, this wisdom, ‘there is the lover and there is the loved. It’s never even.’ And she’d pat Kate’s shoulder. Cold comfort. At seventeen, she believed she’d always be the lover. The one with the bigger heart, the more swollen soul. The one who could be popped like an overblown balloon. Overblown. Is what this stupid argument has become. But the argument, for Richard, is never about the chores, or the money, really. For him, it’s always about the underlying truth: that he is the lover, and she is the loved. It’s uneven.
That’s not even what ‘overblown’ actually means. And now she can’t remember the proper definition. These essays are weakening her grip on the English language.
Love. That’s why she’ll call on Nik. The noblest reason. Who can argue with that?
*
The woodland volunteers have packed up and gone to the Green Man to refresh themselves with beer. The air in the wood is cool and thick, swirling in chilly eddies amongst the still trees. As the street lights ping from grey to dirty orange, a fox potters down the side of the Berrymans’ house, leaves footprints in a long line through the dew of their lawn, and slips under the fence. It sniffs, a hundred familiar scents and one new one. Left along the fence, downhill a little, the smell intensifies.
The fox circles Richard twice, then sits by his shoulder and looks. This is the closest to a fox Richard has ever been. It pokes its black nose into his ear, dots it along his cheek, and pauses at Richard’s open mouth. A kiss from a fox, in the quiet dark of the wood. It makes a fantastical scene, but a brief one, that Richard misses. For the fox does not like what it smells. It backs away and, as if nothing has even taken place, trots off to slide under the fence at number 12, where Tom will have left a chicken bone, or a stale sandwich, beneath the caravan.
Richard’s stomach is gurgling, too, though he doesn’t feel hungry. At this time on a Friday night, he would usually be happily digesting a slab of halibut, or a bucket of mussels in white wine. Fish on Friday was a ritual instigated by Kate, and readily agreed to by him. Since he was in charge of roasting lumps of meat, it meant never having to cook on that last working day of the week, when wine tasted even sweeter than on every other day.
Tonight, his gut bacteria are disappointed, but they are busy, digesting, excreting, slowly filling Richard’s empty belly with new gases. It is no more bothersome to him than the flies, though. And they, at least, have attracted other fantastic visitors. Two bats scoot back and forth above his head, taking turns to dip through the dark, snatching their insect supper. If only his head were angled better, he might have witnessed this, an air show of chaotic, perfect manoeuvres.
*
She takes the longer way, along the pavement, to Nik’s. Too much like pursuit, going through the wood. Following Richard through the gate in the fence. Even if it is a day later. Is that all, a day? She stops for a moment, and breathes in the scent of the wisteria on the front wall of number 18. She’d like a wisteria. She should ask Tom. Only a day, but now she’s on her way, she might as well complete the mission. Just leaving the house is probably enough. He’ll be there when she gets home. Standing by the wine cupboard like nothing even happened. Bastard.
Nik’s house is dark. The sun is low at the back, this time of day. In the garden? She peers through the gaps in the side gate. Only a strip of yellow lawn is visible. ‘Nik?’ she calls. ‘Nikesh? It’s Kate.’
Nothing for it. Next stop the Green Man. If Nik’s there, say she’s meeting a girlfriend. Unlikely, but he can hardly call her a liar. It’s a steep uphill to the pub. Sweaty. Sticky. This is another reason why she never goes. Hard to arrive looking sleek. Though when does she ever look sleek, any more? Someone called her gamine, once. A very long time ago – in another era. She’s held on to it, a bonbon that’s gone mouldy but it’s stuck to her hand and she can’t let go.
There are young men standing at the front of the pub, smoking, baying, even though there’s a garden out back. Dreadful place. All mock-antiques and contrived mismatching. Inside, she peers around, balking at the clashing patterns, the fake bookcases, until she spots Nikesh, on an overstuffed button sofa in the corner. Wave. He doesn’t see. Buy a drink first. Keep up the pretence. My imaginary friend will be here any minute. Should she get two glasses, cement the illusion?
She sips too-warm Merlot, practically mulled, and turns towards Nik again. Wander by. Not over-friendly. Banter, that’s what she should do. A language Nik understands.
‘Hi!’ she beams. Smile too big. God, she’s basically baring her teeth at him.
‘Evening. Kate.’ There’s another man on the sofa next to him. Not Richard. Not unlike Richard, though.
‘So, good night last night?’ she says, her voice as full of banter-ish implication as she can make it.
Nik glances at the man, then looks at her askance. ‘Richard told you?’ he asks.
‘He didn’t need to tell me.’ She grins again.
‘Oh. Right.’ Nik puts down his drink. ‘Well, it was a very good night indeed, actually. So, this is Neil. Neil, Kate. My neighbour.’ The man raises his glass to her.
‘And what did you get up to, last night? The two of you?’ she asks Nik, ignoring the other man.
Nik’s eyes widen. ‘We tried out the new French place in Clapham, as it happens.’
‘Really?’ she says, with a drawn-out upswing she hopes indicates she’s amused by their shenanigans. Is Nik blushing? Then she sees that the man’s hand is on Nik’s knee. Squeezing it.
‘It was great,’ Neil offers, and smiles at Nik. ‘Really great.’
Oh, God. Swig of wine. Rearrange face. ‘Wonderful!’ she says, as the last drip of wine goes down the wrong way. She’s going to cough. Choke to death, probably. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ she croaks and stumbles over a stool as she flees for the garden door. At least she can’t hear them giggling behind her.
In the garden she coughs until her eyes water. Nik and Neil. Lovebirds. She had no idea. It’s funny, really. It will be funny, when she tells Richard about it later. Except she can’t tell him. Because that means admitting she was at the pub. And then it dawns on her. If Nikesh was eating French food in Clapham last night, then Richard was not drinking lager chez Nikesh. And Richard definitely did not sleep on Nik’s couch.
She leans on an aluminium tabletop, and her palms sink into a puddle of beer. Where is her husband?
*
Richard has never been in the wood at midnight on a Friday before, and it’s a surprisingly lively spot. Music leaks from the Fitzgeralds’ house, where the younger daughters are taking advantage of parental absence and entertaining a clutch of cologne-soaked youths from the boys’ sixth-form. Two cats, from houses at opposite ends of the wood, meet in the middle to stalk and scrap, too transfixed by each other’s infuriating scents to take any notice of Richard as they pass him. Just off the path that leads past the Berrymans’ garden, but further along, near the public gate, two men lock together, long enough to exchange a murmur. One unbuckles his belt while the other drops to his knees in the dead leaves. He reaches for the standing man’s cock and pulls it into his mouth, his hands gripping at denim, at the muscle beneath. Fifteen minutes later, another man waits in the same rhododendron patch, peering along the path until a shadow moves towards him, raising a hand.
