‘Be nice to your sister! It’s her birthday!’ their dad called.
Philip gave his sister a look of pure dislike.
‘Come on, pancakes are ready!’ her mum called.
Bessie slunk past her scowling brother and took a seat at the kitchen table. Her dad was eating a pallid and rather wrinkled pancake and winked at her, the corners of his mouth drawn down in distaste. She picked up her fork to tuck into the cool, greasy lump that sat on her plate, sloshed generously with lemon juice and sugar.
‘Thanks, Mum.’ She smiled meekly and used the side of her fork to cut a mouthful.
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You were on the phone for an age!’ her dad said suddenly.
She didn’t want to look him in the eye, not when the topic under discussion had been S-E-X. ‘I guess we have a lot to talk about.’
‘Well, I guess you need to find a way to have less to talk about or, better still, wait until you see your mate. It’d be bloody cheaper! There’s no money tree in our back garden.’ Her dad was fond of telling her this, and yet, compared to Michelle’s family, they lived like kings. And if they did have a money tree, she’d give it a big shake and, with whatever dropped out, buy a ticket to California.
‘We are so proud of you. We can’t wait to see your exam results. This is just the start for you, the start of your big adventure. Our little girl . . .’ Her mum ran her palm over the tousled pineapple of hair on the top of her head and Bessie thought it odd how they saw her as a little girl and yet she knew she was a big girl with big ideas. ‘I can’t wait to see them either.’ She couldn’t wait for her adventure to begin.
CHAPTER TWO
August 20th 2021
The alarm pip-pipped its infernal noise. Bess screwed her eyes shut, reluctant to greet the day. The blanket of melancholy that wrapped her shoulders and held her tight felt as unpleasant and restrictive as it always did on days like these, weighing her down.
Reaching for her phone, she jabbed her finger on to the button that would silence the alarm, having no choice other than to admit she was awake: her face squashed into the soft pillow, the pull of her bladder, which needed emptying, and her husband’s rumbling snore, which ended with the smack of his lips. And yet she lay perfectly still, hoping pointlessly for five more minutes of escape.
Admitting defeat, she opened her eyes and rolled on to her back and, with her nightdress rucked around her middle, stared up at the ceiling and the three-arm ivory-coloured chandelier decorated with snaking leaves. The addition had seemed like a good idea when she thumbed through the interior design magazine in the newsagent’s, looking for inspiration, convincing Mario that it was all the rage. Now, though, with its bare candle bulbs and plastic droplets that from a distance looked like glass, she thought it a bit too grand and out of place in the cosy bedroom of their dormer bungalow. Not that she would ever admit this to her husband, who had taken a bit of persuading that at one hundred and fifteen quid it was what the article had described as ‘an investment piece’ – money he felt would have been better put towards a new mattress. A year or so back they had considered a replacement, but she had fallen at the final hurdle at the mere thought of giving up her beloved bed, refusing to upgrade because she knew it was the little imperfections and familiarity that gave her the best night’s sleep. A new, firmer example without the comfortable dip in which her hip lodged and without the lingering essence of its history would not be the same at all. Mario didn’t get it, but then Mario didn’t get lots of things.
She smarted at the resounding fart that now poisoned her atmosphere, making her jaw tense and her nose wrinkle.
‘Was that you or the dog?’ She nudged her husband with her right foot, her toes sliding against his wide, hairy calf.
‘I know it’s an awful thing to say,’ Mario mumbled, ‘but I honestly don’t know.’ He chuckled until the duvet shook. Bess did not find it so amusing and felt the squeak of her back teeth as she ground her upper and lower jaw with irritation. She looked at Chutney, their dark, leggy mongrel, snoring peacefully in the wide space between them on the bed.
When Chutney was a pup, they would on occasion breach the gap, scooting him to the bottom of the mattress and reaching over to make contact skin-to-skin as they indulged in quick, satisfying sex on a Saturday night, with the promise of a lie-in on Sunday. It had been a while since they had shifted the dog for this purpose, using him as both an excuse and a foot warmer. It wasn’t Mario’s fault. Newly married, Bess would have laughed at the fart, leapt on top of her husband, chastised him, kissed him and buried her face in the chest of this man who had pledged to love her for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health. She tried to recall when she had stopped behaving that way, tried to remember exactly when it had first felt easier to curl up and reflect, harder to laugh and be silly. When she lost the baby, certainly. That was one marker.
It was the turn of Mario’s alarm to blast its greeting, and her heart sank.
How she hated the sound. Hated it more than the scratch of something on a chalkboard, more than the squeak of cutlery across the cheap metal trays of the kids whose lunches she served every day in the school canteen and more than bloody Smudge’s piercing yap. Smudge being the small Jack Russell that lived with Mr Draper (‘Call me Jonathan!’) over the way and who harassed Chutney at every given opportunity – the dog, that was, not Mr Draper. ‘He wants to be friends!’ Mr Draper would trill, while Smudge did his best to snap at Chutney’s one remaining testicle with his teeth bared.
‘Come on, lazy arse!’ her husband chortled. ‘Time to get up!’
‘I am many things, Mario, but I’m not lazy.’
‘I was joking,’ he sniffed, ‘or trying to. You’re not still a bit down in the dumps, are you?’ His intonation was heavy with judgement and impatience with her.
Her silence said more than any fake denial or forced smile that might have helped smooth the start of the day.
‘The thing is, Bess,’ he said eventually, ‘I don’t know if you know this, but your mood is catching – it’s a joy hoover. It makes me feel like shite; it even makes Chutney feel like shite!’ He ran his hand over the head of their beloved mutt.
It wasn’t news. Her moods balled the sunshine and lobbed it into the back yard to land with the weeds growing up through the patio and the discarded wood stacked in the corner, loitering without purpose. It put the house in permanent winter, which made her feel both powerful and guilty.
She watched him rise and stretch, his fringe sticking up at all angles, the grey hair of his chest wiry and long and his eyes bleary, picturing the man she had fallen in love with when he had come to talk to the manager of the supermarket in which she had been working. He, a young salesman, and she, a girl trying to find her place in the world, keeping her head down, working with tins of beans instead of flying the skies. The man who had held her hand as they fell asleep each night, as if contact was vital. The man who would creep downstairs in the morning, returning with a cup of hot tea, steadying it on her bedside table for when she woke. That man, who had thrown her a lifeline . . .
‘Do you know, I sometimes wish we could go back to those years when we were first married and you were so much nicer to me,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t have dreamt of saying something like that . . .’