Our Tragic Universe (31 page)

‘It’s OK,’ I said. ‘I’ll move them somehow.’

‘You’d touch them?’

‘Yeah, it’s OK.’

‘They’ll curse you.’

‘They won’t.’ I thought about the nocebo effect. ‘I think if you don’t believe in them, they can’t hurt you.’

‘I can’t stop believing in them.’

‘I know. But you will one day.’

Josh sighed. ‘Thank you for coming to help me. I’m very grateful.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘I left a message for Milly, but maybe she won’t come. She always used to help.’

I sighed. ‘Yeah. It’s all a bit complicated, I guess, now she’s moved out.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So does this happen a lot?’ I said.

He shrugged. ‘It’s been better recently, but usually about once a week.’

‘And you always call Milly?’

‘Yeah. She’s very sympathetic. She understands. I don’t know what I’m going to do when she goes.’

‘Goes? But I thought she’d already …’

‘I mean when she goes to London.’

‘I didn’t know she was going to London.’

‘She is. She’s going back to her parents. Christopher will be thrilled.’

‘God.’

We stood there for a few moments looking at the diaries. One of them showed all the Pagan festivals, and the phases of the moon; another had pictures of mushrooms and details of when you could pick the different types; another included tide
tables for the Devon coastline. I picked up the mushroom diary and opened it randomly. An entry for October told me about the death cap, which looks similar to the field mushroom except for its white gills. The field mushroom is good on toast; the death cap will kill you if you eat it. I knew this already because I sometimes went foraging with Libby and Bob. Bob had a rule never to pick anything with white gills, because of the death cap, but Libby claimed to know which white-gilled mushrooms were poisonous and which weren’t, and so picked whatever she liked. One of their friends had ended up on kidney dialysis after eating what looked like chanterelles but were actually deadly webcaps. Hearing about this hadn’t bothered Libby at all. I couldn’t imagine being killed by a mushroom. I put the diary back.

‘OK,’ I said. ‘So I think I’m going to go and …’

Josh shuddered. ‘Do you mind if we just stand here for another minute or so before you touch them? I have to prepare myself. I think we can just look at diaries for a bit longer.’

‘OK. Just tell me when you’re ready.’

‘Did I ever tell you the joke about the flood?’

‘No. I don’t think so. What is it?’

‘A very religious man hears that there’s a flood coming. Everyone in his village is evacuated, but when people ask him why he’s not going, he says, “God will save me.” So the flood comes and the waters get higher and higher. The man ends up on his roof. A boat comes to rescue him, but the man refuses to get on it. “God will save me,” he says, and the boat goes away. Then the water gets even higher until there’s only a tiny patch of his roof left. A helicopter comes and they let down a rope-ladder, but the man waves them away. “It’s all right,” he
says. “God will save me.” Anyway, he drowns and goes to heaven. When he gets there he’s pretty pissed off, so he goes straight to God and asks him why he let him die. “I believed you would save me!” he says. “Well,” says God, “I did try. I sent you a warning, and then a boat and then a helicopter. What more did you want?”’

I laughed. ‘That’s a good one. Oh – thinking of heaven, I’ve brought
Second World
for you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘It’s in the car with Bess. I hope she hasn’t eaten it.’

‘I hope so too.’

The door tinkled and I turned around. It was Milly.

‘Hi,’ she said to me.

‘Hi,’ I said. ‘He can’t turn around.’

‘Milly,’ Josh said, with his back to her. ‘Sorry to call you again. Thanks so much … How are you?’

While he was talking, Milly frowned a question-mark at me, and I tilted my head at the cards. She nodded. She could see what the problem was too. She was younger than me, younger even than my brother Toby, but she seemed ageless. Her hair was red and shiny and her eyes were light grey. She had no wrinkles, but didn’t look childlike. We’d met about a year before, at Peter’s sixty-fifth birthday party. Christopher had been too ill to go, so I’d gone on my own and helped Josh and Peter with the food. Milly had been playing the harp. After the other guests left, the four of us sat and drank espressos from the machine and we laughed at Josh’s jokes and talked about our plans for the following year. Peter was going to do his Grade 5 music theory test and start opening the café in the evenings. Josh was going to write down his theory of everything and try to make
peace with one more number. Milly said she was going to learn how to sew and make her own clothes. It felt more like New Year’s Eve than someone’s birthday. I said I was going to finish my novel, and I couldn’t think of anything else. I’d wondered for ages after that about ringing Milly and suggesting coffee or lunch, but I never did because I didn’t want to have to lie to Christopher about where I was going. Also, I never had any money for coffee or lunch.

‘I’ve been better,’ she said. Then, to me: ‘How’s Christopher’s hand?’

‘Broken. But it was all his fault.’

‘Yes,’ she said. Her eyes filled with tears.

‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Oh, ignore me. We need to move these stupid cards somehow.’

‘Josh doesn’t want us to touch them,’ I said.

Milly rolled her eyes and went over to the counter, where the shop assistant was reading a book. After a whispered conversation that I couldn’t quite hear, Milly sighed, marched over to the metal rack by the door and started taking out all the cards with numbers on them. Then she walked back over to the desk, dumped them all down and got her purse out of her bag. Josh had his eyes shut through all of this, and when he heard Milly sigh again he reached for my hand.

‘You know that’s going to be thirty-eight pounds forty?’ said the shop assistant.

‘Fine,’ said Milly. ‘You take Visa, presumably?’

A minute or two later Milly walked past with a big paper bag. Josh still had his eyes shut. The door tinkled as she walked out.

‘What’s happening?’ Josh said.

‘It’s OK. The numbers have gone,’ I said.

He opened his eyes. ‘Thank God. Where’s Milly?’

‘I imagine she’s disposing of them somehow.’

‘It’s cost her loads. I’ll have to pay her back. And she must be so upset about her and Dad as well and … Oh – I’m such a knob.’

‘It’s OK,’ I said again. ‘Don’t worry.’

Josh was still shaking as we walked out of the shop. ‘Will you thank Milly for me when she gets back?’ he said. ‘I’m too embarrassed to see anyone right now, especially her. I think I’m going to go home and have a lie down. I’m so fucking pathetic I can’t believe it.’

‘You’re not,’ I said. ‘Come on. Everyone’s got things they find hard to do. Wait a moment while I get that book out of the car for you. Will you text me at some point and let me know you’re all right?’

‘Yeah. Thanks, Meg. I really owe you one. I’m so sorry.’

B had just woken up, and was now up at the window making a squealing sound at Josh, who didn’t seem to notice. The book was still in its carrier bag on the dashboard, unchewed. I gave it to Josh, and he walked away up the road with the bag under his arm as if it held a map he’d already consulted.

Shortly after he’d gone, Milly came back.

‘What did you do with them?’ I asked.

‘Charity shop,’ she said. ‘Poor Josh.’ She dropped her head and looked at her hands.

‘Hey – are you all right?’

She frowned. ‘I could really do with a coffee if you’re free.’

‘Of course.’ I didn’t look at my watch, but I decided that it
would be easy for the car to have broken down as well. The car was always breaking down.

‘I’m not going back to Peter,’ Milly said. ‘I’m moving to London.’

We were drinking lattes outside the Barrel House, despite the cold, because B had refused to stay in the car. She was now sniffing around under the table, perhaps looking for squirrels. Milly was wearing turquoise fingerless gloves, and had her hands wrapped around her coffee as if it was the only source of warmth in her life.

‘But …’

‘I do love him,’ she said. ‘But it’s impossible.’

She started crying and I gave her my napkin.

‘God, I can’t even talk. How are you? I wanted to meet you again after that party, but I never did, and now I probably never will again, and it’s a shame, because I thought we could have been friends. Oh, I’m rambling. I’m sorry.’

I smiled at her. ‘My life’s pretty complicated. But fine, really. I felt the same way after the party. But hey, maybe it won’t come to this. Maybe you won’t leave.’

She carried on crying, and I gave her B’s lead to hold while I went inside to get her some more napkins. When I came back, B had got onto Milly’s lap and was licking her face. She hated it when people cried, and always wanted to lick their tears away.

‘Get down,’ I said to B. ‘Come on, you silly dog.’

‘It’s all right,’ Milly said. ‘She’s making me feel better.’

‘Oh, well, push her off when you’ve had enough.’

‘It’s nice not being judged for once,’ she said, once she’d blown her nose and composed herself. ‘Animals never judge you. You know, it’s not just Christopher. It’s Becca too. It’s become unbearable.’

‘Oh, I’ve been on the receiving end of Becca,’ I said. ‘She hasn’t spoken to me for the last seven years. You do get over it.’

‘I’m not sure Peter will. He’s so kind, and so thoughtful, but how can you be kind and thoughtful both with your children and with the woman they disapprove of? Josh has been great, but the other two … Well. It’s over now. I’m going back to London to stay with my parents. I reckon it’ll take me about a year or so to get over Peter, and then maybe I can find an ambitious young conductor, or someone else my mother will approve of. But I won’t love anyone the way I love Peter. It’s absurd. He’s sixty-five and I’m twenty-eight. If only he was ten years younger and I was ten years older. That might be just about OK. Or if he was the woman and I was the man. There aren’t so many clichés then.’

‘I guess that’s true,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a couple of friends in a relationship like that, sort of. She’s in her sixties and he’s just turned fifty-three. She jokes about him being her toyboy and everyone just laughs. It’s really unfair that it should work one way and not the other. But you know, not everyone is judging you. Everyone’s got something that other people would think was awful if they knew. People like to attack the people who can’t or won’t hide, because that’s all part of their own camouflage.’

Milly sipped her coffee. ‘When Becca comes down for the weekend it’s understood that I keep out of the way. You know that I was in the process of moving into the flat? Peter
wondered if we could just “not tell Becca” for a year or so, and wanted to know whether I’d feel uncomfortable going to London or something and hiding all my stuff on the weekends that she comes. He can’t say no to any of his kids, as you’ll have seen, so basically all she has to do is ring up and say she’s coming, and that’s it – I have to change my plans. He wasn’t sure about me moving my harp into the flat, because it wouldn’t be that easy to hide if Becca did come down. I’m just so sick of feeling like I’m something to be ashamed of. You know, last time Becca came it was my birthday. Peter had booked for us to go to this restaurant on Dartmoor, but he cancelled it, told me he was sorry and asked if we could celebrate my birthday another day. The worst thing is that I don’t have children and grandchildren of my own – never will if I stay with Peter – so my whole life’s about him, and only a fraction of his is about me. And it won’t ever change. I won’t ever come first for him, even though I’m the one who is there all the time, and I’m actually interested in him and his life and how the café’s doing, and how he’s getting on with his sax lessons, and what book he’s just read. I’m the one who makes him do his scales and runs him a bath when he doesn’t feel very well. Becca only rings when she wants something, or if she’s had an argument with her husband and wants to escape for a few days. She’s not that interested in Peter at all. But something about them makes him panic. He doesn’t mean to hurt my feelings, but he does, all the time, because he’s been put in this impossible position. He can’t ever suggest to Becca that she comes at a different time because it’s my birthday, for example, since he knows Becca will say something back like, “How old is she going to be this year? Seventeen?”’

‘I just don’t understand why they’ve got such a problem with your relationship,’ I said. ‘It’s not as if their mother died last week. Surely they’ve got to let him move on.’

A gust of wind blew up the High Street and I did up my jacket. B was still curled up on Milly’s lap. Milly now held her coffee with one hand and stroked B with the other. If B had been a cat, she would have purred.

‘They don’t like it because it’s embarrassing,’ she said. ‘They don’t want to have their birthdays and Christmases and holidays spoiled by having to think of me in bed with their father. That’s what it comes down to. We live in a very conservative world, really. Becca’s an authority because she conforms, and she has a nice big house, I imagine, and a cleaner, and nice furniture, and a husband and three lovely children, and that gives her the right to judge me, and decide how I should live. You know, what’s really sad is that she and Christopher don’t understand that the spirit doesn’t age. You’re the same person at sixty-five as you are at twenty-eight, really, with more or less experiences, and more or less wisdom. Peter can be very childish sometimes, and, even though he’s got more general knowledge than me, when we talk about really important things we’re completely equal. Of course, when we talk about music it’s as if I’m the wise old woman and he’s just a child. He can’t even work out a minor scale yet. So it’s not all cut and dried. When Becca and Ant are sixty-five, they’ll be the same people as when they were twenty-eight, more or less. So if one of them was twenty-eight now and the other sixty-five, that wouldn’t make any difference. It’s the same with Christopher. Would he reject you if you were sixty, or twenty?’