Paradise City (19 page)

Looking at these offerings, Esme feels a rush of complicated love. Chocolate Brazil nuts have been a favourite since childhood. Lilian always used to save her the special ones from Christmas assortments of sweet treats and jellied fruits. That she has remembered this makes Esme smile. She knows her mother loves her. She should try harder to show her mother that she loves her back.

Esme puts on a pair of socks before jumping into the shivering coolness of the bed. Lilian doesn’t believe in central heating after 9 p.m. so the whole house has settled into the usual night-time draughtiness. Even this inspires a feeling of fondness.

‘Oh Mum,’ Esme murmurs under her breath. She scans the magazine article. Apparently she should take a break from her screen every half-hour and roll her shoulders clockwise, then in the other direction. She tries it now, sitting up against the headboard, and her joints click and snap satisfyingly. Then she switches off the bedside light, snuggles down into the clean sheets and rests her head on the pillow where the chocolate Brazil nuts have left a soft impression.

Tomorrow, thinks Esme. Tomorrow will be good. Tomorrow, I will be a better daughter.

She sleeps soundly, tucked up neatly under the single duvet, and wakes to the sound of her mother scrabbling around in the kitchen beneath her room: the reassuring rhythm of taps being turned and cupboard doors being opened. At precisely ten minutes past nine, just as Esme had known she would, her mother knocks gently on the bedroom door, peeks her head round and says cheerily, ‘Morning, darling. Cup of tea?’

‘Lovely, thanks, Mum.’

Esme props herself up against her pillow and takes the hot mug of tea from her mother’s hands. It has been made just how she likes it: strong but milky. She blows gently across the top, feeling the steamy warmth against her face. Her mother leans across and briskly opens the curtains. The room is filled with a muted light, the colour of an unwashed dishcloth.

If Esme had been left to her own devices, she would have treated herself to a lie-in but she knows her mother sees excess sleep as a sign of weakness, a waste of time that could otherwise be devoted to endless domestic chores (chores that, by dint of their extreme triviality, could only have been invented purely for this purpose: replanting the herbaceous borders, cleaning the fridge, darning an ancient pair of socks when it would be easier to buy a new pair. Because, Esme thinks, who really needs to rearrange their sewing-box? Who genuinely believes their life will be enriched by the effort of it?).

‘Not all that nice a day, I’m afraid,’ says Lilian, sitting down delicately at the end of the bed, right at the edge. Her mother has a knack of pretending not to want to draw attention to herself while achieving precisely the opposite effect.

Esme pats the bed with her spare hand.

‘Come closer, Mum. Get comfortable.’

Lilian shuffles up, head bowed, a small smile on her face. She is already dressed in Capri pants and a striped pink top. The top is made out of stretchy fabric which clings to her, accentuating the single roll of post-menopausal fat that spills over her waistband. The square neckline reveals a sunned patch of neck, skin still glistening slightly from Lilian’s daily moisturising routine involving the generous application of Oil of Olay. Her fingernails are painted a glimmering pink.

‘I like your nail varnish,’ Esme says.

‘Oh thank you. I had them done the other day at this new nail bar in town. Terribly nice Thai girls. Couldn’t understand a word of what they were saying but it was very good value.’

Lilian glances at her.

‘Did you sleep well, darling?’

‘Mmm. Like a log.’

‘Well,’ Lilian says, crossing her legs and cupping her hands around one knee. ‘What would you like to do today?’

What she’d most like to do today is buy the Sunday papers and watch trashy American reality shows in her pyjamas. But she knows better than to say this out loud.

‘I don’t know. Maybe we could go somewhere nice for lunch? Or the cinema . . . ?’

‘Oh no, it’s far too nice a day for that.’

‘I thought you said it wasn’t looking that great.’

‘It’ll probably clear up later.’

Esme takes a gulp of tea. She can feel her cheeks burning.

‘What would
you
like to do, Mum?’

Lilian laughs, grabbing hold of Esme’s leg through the duvet.

‘I don’t mind as long as I’m spending time with you.’

‘OK,’ Esme says, putting the tea to one side and swinging herself out of bed. She is determined this conversation won’t beat her. ‘Then let’s go for lunch at the pub and have a proper catch-up. I might pop to the newsagent’s to get the papers before then.’

She bends to kiss her mother affectionately on the top of her head to forestall any further objections.

‘I’ll jump in the shower.’

‘All right, dear,’ Lilian says.

‘Thank you for the chocolate Brazils. You’re so sweet to remember.’

Lilian beams at her and waves her hand dismissively.

‘It was just a little thing . . .’

She turns away from Esme and starts to rearrange the bed, pulling the sheets cleanly to each corner, smoothing the wrinkles from the slept-in duvet. Esme stares at her back for a moment, then puts on her dressing gown and strides into the hallway with a purposefulness she doesn’t feel. In the bathroom, just as she is about to turn on the shower, her mother shouts after her, ‘Your phone’s beeping.’

‘I’ll check it later,’ Esme replies, her voice swallowed by the noise of the water tank, jolting itself into use.

Later, when she does look at her phone, scrubbed and fresh, with wet hair trailing down her back, she notices she’s missed a call from Dave. Her stomach contracts. If he’s calling on a Sunday it’s generally because there’s a serious complaint about something she’s written. She listens to the voicemail message standing in the middle of her bedroom, holding a towel around her with one hand. Her mother’s towels are always slightly too small and threadbare to be comfortable and she has to wrestle with the edges of it to keep herself from trembling.

‘Hi, Es. Give me a call, would you? Thanks.’

She rings him straight back. Dave answers immediately.

‘Esme,’ he says, stretching out her name like a piece of melting caramel. ‘Sorry to disturb you on your day of rest.’

‘That’s OK. Anything wrong?’

She can hear a jumble of noises in the background: the faint voice of a teenager, an answering female murmur and the sound of cutlery being laid out on a table. His family, she thinks, and she feels exposed, suddenly, aware of her nakedness underneath the damp towel.

‘Not as such,’ Dave continues. ‘Are you in London?’

‘No, I’m at my mum’s.’

There is a pause on the other end of the line.

‘Where’s that then?’

‘Herefordshire.’

‘Nice countryside there. Lot of hedgerows.’

‘Erm, yeah, I suppose there are.’

‘Listen, Es, could you get back here for tomorrow. I wouldn’t normally ask but it’s important.’

Relief floods into her bones. A watertight excuse for leaving early. She smiles.

‘Of course, but can you let me know what it’s about at least?’

‘It’s about your mate,’ Dave says. He leaves a beat of perfectly judged silence, just enough to whet her appetite.

‘Howard Pink,’ he says. ‘He wants to do an interview.’

Carol

It was Vanessa who had the idea for an excursion.

‘I thought we could go to the Wetlands Centre,’ she had said, bright and breezy over the phone a couple of nights ago.

‘Your dad loved that place,’ Carol replied, before she could stop herself. Vanessa was worried she was wallowing. That was her word. Wallowing. Like a seal.

‘I know. And Archie loves it too. He can use those binoculars you gave him.’

Last August, when Archie had turned twelve, Carol had got him the binoculars for his birthday. Derek had just started his chemo – long hours spent in a room hooked up to a bag of chemicals. She would go with her husband to the hospital and do her knitting or take some of her magazines: anything to avoid looking at the life draining out of him. The worst part was when he tried to be cheerful. He’d attempt a smile but the crinkles at the corner of his eyes seemed to deepen, as if some invisible hand had dug out a series of tiny ditches on the landscape of his skin. His cheeks sank into themselves, collapsing like badly pitched tents, so that instead of looking reassuring, he appeared only to be losing himself into a succession of empty spaces. It was the emptiness that broke her heart. There were days when Derek’s face wouldn’t express anything at all.

Archie turned twelve in the midst of it all, so Carol had taken it upon herself to get his present. She’d discussed it with Derek and he’d agreed that a pair of binoculars was ‘just the ticket’. Archie loved birds. He’d saved up all his pocket money to become a member of the RSPB after watching a nature documentary on the declining number of sparrows. So Carol did a bit of research online and then pottered down the road to the Southside Centre to order a pair of lightweight, waterproof binoculars from Argos. She paid £61.99 at the till, which was more than she’d usually spend on anyone else’s birthday present, but she knew the look on Archie’s face would be worth it. Besides, it wasn’t as if he had a dad to spoil him. It was only him and Vanessa, after all.

She’d been right about Archie’s reaction: as soon as he’d opened the carefully wrapped box, his face got that blurry look around the edges. He was happy as a pig in clover.

Derek, sitting on the sofa, covered snugly in a blanket even though it was one of the hottest days of the year, had chuckled with satisfaction. Archie rushed over, throwing himself into his granddad’s arms, burrowing his head into that tender part between the top of Derek’s shoulder and the base of his neck.

‘Thank you, Granddad,’ he said, voice muffled.

‘It was your grandma’s idea.’ Derek patted his grandson on the back. He let his hand rest there, white and frail against the red of Archie’s polo-shirt. Looking at them, Carol was struck by their completeness: just the two of them, curved into each other, finding each other’s gaps and filling them. She wanted to cry, not from happiness or sadness, but from something in between the two that she couldn’t define.

Sometimes, Carol thought to herself as she listened to her daughter’s voice on the phone, the simplest things gave you the best feeling.

‘I’d love to come,’ she said.

On the other end of the line, she could hear Vanessa exhale with relief.

So here they are, walking along the towpath towards the Wetlands Centre near Barnes, just the three of them: Vanessa in cut-off denim shorts and a black T-shirt that makes her look paler than she is, Archie with his binoculars strung proudly round his neck and Carol wearing her sensible walking shoes and a floppy fabric sunhat that presses down too tightly on her hairline. Sweat prickles on her forehead. The problem with getting older, she finds, is that you can’t keep up any more. Whenever they walk anywhere together, Vanessa starts off being thoughtful and slowing her pace so that it matches her mother’s. But then, after fifteen minutes or so, her daughter seems to forget and slips into her usual briskness and Carol doesn’t like to be a stick-in-the-mud, so tries to speed up without saying anything to draw attention to herself. As a result, Carol arrives everywhere uncomfortably hot and out of breath.

By the time they get to the Wetlands Centre, all Carol wants is a nice sit-down and a cup of tea. In the queue for tickets, Archie glances at her sideways. His head is bowed, his face half obscured by hair, but she catches him taking everything in. He is the most observant boy. Wise beyond his years, as she’s fond of telling anyone who’ll listen.

‘Mum,’ he says, tugging at the edge of Vanessa’s T-shirt.

Vanessa doesn’t turn to look at him. She’s busy on her phone, Carol sees. As usual. Her daughter went back to work three months after Archie was born. Three months! Carol didn’t approve of career women, on the whole. By all means have a part-time job when you’re raising kids, just to make ends meet. But what was the point of having a child if you weren’t going to mother them? All this talk of women ‘having it all’. Stuff and nonsense. Why would anyone want to have it all anyway? You made your choices and you stuck to them.

‘Mum,’ Archie is saying, determination creeping in around the edges of his voice.

‘Mmmm.’

‘Can we have a drink in the café first? I’m really thirsty.’

‘Oh Archie, I told you to bring some water . . .’

‘Please?’

‘OK. But we don’t want to miss the bird feeding at three.’

While Vanessa pays for their tickets with a credit card, Carol hugs her grandson close to her. He wriggles but she knows he likes it really. She presses her hand tight against his ribcage and feels his slender bones. Over the last few months, he has shot up in height. She worries constantly that he doesn’t eat enough. She knows, too, that he won’t allow her to hug him for too much longer. Soon he’ll be a gangly teenager, introverted and self-conscious. She’s seen it all before with Vanessa. In fact, looking at her now texting whoever it is on that Blackcurrant contraption or whatever they call it, Carol is not even sure her daughter has ever grown out of adolescence.