While My Eyes Were Closed (2 page)

‘No problem. And just so you know when you have to referee the fallout, it was actually me who ate the Coco Pops.’ Alex leaps out of bed so quickly that my foot misses his backside.

‘I’ll get you for that later,’ I call out as he disappears into the en suite. I lie there for a second, breathing in the stillness, feeling the warmth of the early-morning sun, which is streaming through the new cream Ikea curtains just as Alex warned me it would. I can already hear the sound of bickering drifting up from downstairs. Ella’s voice, as usual, is the loudest.

I try to block it out as I wonder how Chloe is doing. Whether she’s actually allowing herself to have a good time in France or if that is still too big a leap for her. I’ve only had a couple of brief texts so far. There was a time not so long ago when she’d have been texting me all the time. That was before, though. When we were still best friends.

There is a shout of ‘Mummy’ and associated commotion from downstairs. I swing my legs out of bed. The laminate floor is warm already. It’s going to be another hot day. Though at least the gym is air-conditioned. I try to ignore the pile of laundry in the linen basket and the heap of clean clothes hanging over the balustrade on the landing still waiting to be ironed. I also try not to
think about what Mum would say if she could see the mess which greets me in the kitchen. She offered to come and do some cleaning after Ella was born. I had to say no, even though I knew the house needed it. Because I also knew that if I said yes, she would still be our cleaner when Ella was sixteen.

By the time Alex arrives downstairs the cereal fight has been broken up and Otis has just finished counting out the last of the Coco Pops so he and Ella have exactly the same amount in their bowls.

‘Mummy says you owe us a box of Coco Pops,’ Otis says, clearly still riled by the perceived injustice.

‘Grass,’ Alex mouths to me before turning back to Otis. ‘And you owe me about sixty quid for replacing the glass in Mrs Hunter’s greenhouse, which you mistook for a football net, remember?’

‘Oh yeah,’ says Otis.

‘Quits?’ asks Alex.

‘Quits.’ Otis smiles, getting back to his Coco Pops.

I swear under my breath as I knock over the open pack of ground coffee at the exact moment I realise I’ve forgotten to get the bread out of the freezer for Otis’s packed lunch.

Alex comes over, puts his hands on my hips and whispers, ‘Chill out. Sit down and have your breakfast; I’ll sort it.’ I smile at him and for once don’t argue. He knows I’m uptight about Chloe. He was the one who suggested the holiday, said it would do her good to get
away. He was right of course, though it pains me to admit it. But he doesn’t worry about her as much as I do. Nobody worries about her as much as I do.

I pour myself a bowl of muesli, take two slices of bread from the freezer and put them in the still-warm toaster on my way past, and sit down at the kitchen table.

‘How many sleeps now, Mummy?’ asks Ella.

‘Three,’ I reply. She gives a little squeal. I have never known any child be quite this excited about starting school. Chloe was nervous about it, Otis was entirely nonplussed, but for Ella it appears to be on a par with Christmas.

‘We ought to be videoing this,’ says Alex, ‘so we can play it back to you in ten years’ time when you’re saying “I hate school” and refusing to get up in the mornings.’

‘Why would I hate school?’ asks Ella.

‘You won’t,’ I say in between mouthfuls of muesli. ‘It’s just that some teenagers can be a bit grumpy.’

‘Like Chloe, you mean?’ she says.

I glance up at Alex. Chloe has made an effort to be her old self in front of Ella and Otis. She made me promise not to tell them what had happened. She didn’t even want Alex to know, although I couldn’t agree to that. There are some things which can’t be passed off as teenage moods. Anyway, I wasn’t prepared to lie to him. It was the one thing I insisted on before I finally gave in and agreed to his marriage proposal. Always being honest with each other. Which was why he said he didn’t
think it was a good idea for me to be his personal trainer any more. Not unless I wanted to know what he really ate when he was on the road every day.

‘Chloe’s not grumpy,’ says Alex, crouching down next to Ella, ‘not compared to Daddy Bear when he discovers Goldilocks has eaten all his Coco Pops.’ He goes to grab Ella’s bowl. She squeals and collapses in fits of giggles as Alex tickles her. I smile, finish my muesli and wonder for the umpteenth time what I ever did to deserve him.

The house reeks of emptiness. It does so all the time but I notice it particularly in the mornings. Not that it was ever a noisy house. Not like some of those chaotic places you see in documentaries about people on benefits on the television. But there was always some low-level noise in the mornings. A workman-like hum as Malcolm and Matthew went about their morning ablutions and got ready for the day ahead.

I didn’t really notice it at the time. It is one of those things you only miss when it has gone. There are rather a lot of those. Malcolm was generally considerate with the toilet seat, Matthew perhaps not so much. It is strange to think how it used to bother me. And now I am bothered by something I do not have to do. Do not have to remind someone of.

And socks. I am disturbed by the lack of socks in the house. It hardly seems right, does it? I mean most women are forever complaining about having to wash them (my mother even used to iron my father’s socks) and find lost ones. But now, living in a house without socks doesn’t seem right somehow. It is yin without yang. Everything is out of balance. There are plenty of houses with only female occupants of course. It is simply that this house was never meant to be one of them.

I reach over and turn on the radio. I am not particularly fond of Classic FM. I rather like John Suchet – although I could never understand what he was doing on ITV instead of the BBC – but I would prefer not to have to listen to the adverts. Still, it was one of the things I discovered after Malcolm left – that
not
having Classic FM on in the mornings reminded me more of his absence than having it on.

I think Matthew preferred it on too. Although maybe for the same reasons I did. I don’t know because he never spoke about his father after he left. Matthew knew better than to bring such things up at the dinner table. Or anywhere else for that matter. And I, of course, know better than to discuss Matthew’s departure too.

I hear Melody miaowing outside the door. She has never been allowed in the bedrooms. It troubles me that so many people do permit such things. Certainly she has been a huge comfort to me, and I understand the human soul’s need for comfort, I truly do. But we should
not accept another species into our most private room. That is how the lines start to become blurred. People have this ridiculous notion that we and animals are somehow on the same level. I blame Disney films. I blame them for a lot of things. All of this over-sentimentality and the vulgar Americanisms which have crept into our language. I saw the P. L. Travers film at the cinema. They had it on for elevenses at the Picture House in Hebden Bridge.
Saving Mr Banks
, I think they called it. Though personally I think it was Mr Disney who needed saving. Poor Miss Travers was rather lazily portrayed, I thought. I mean it’s all too easy, isn’t it? The middle-aged, middle-class Englishwoman as an odd and emotionally cold spinster, out of step with the modern world. Maybe if we’d listened more to the likes of her then the world would be in a rather better state today.

I prop myself up with the pillows. I’ve never believed in jumping straight out of bed. You need a little time to acclimatise, to see the world from a vertical position before you actually set foot in it. I listen to the news, or rather I am aware that the news is on. The words themselves wash over me. You get to an age where you have heard it all before. Each item only a variation on well-worn themes, and it doesn’t really matter that the names are different, or even some of the details. Because nothing changes. Whatever sort of fuss is kicked up about these things, the old order will be maintained.
And one day these young people, young people like Matthew, will accept it as I do, rather than thinking they can somehow change the way things are.

I tune back in for the weather. It is going to be another hot day. Too hot by far for what is the tail end of summer. I miss the seasons we used to have. Four distinct ones with clear demarcations between them. Not two. Summer and winter. Both of them being far too long. One shouldn’t complain. That is what people always say. The lady in the baker’s does, at least. Not that I subscribe to that view. These over-long over-hot summers are not good for people. They become suffocating. People find it difficult to breathe. At least one of the benefits of living in a Victorian house is that the high ceilings give the air more room to circulate. And the thickness of the walls keeps the temperature down to a bearable level. It is one of the reasons I never liked staying in Jennifer’s house. It was like a pressure cooker in weather like this. I don’t know how she and Peter could stand it. Why she went for a newbuild I’ll never know. There again I’ll never know why she went for Peter either. Odd to think that a sister of mine should have such questionable taste. I suppose that’s the one good thing to have come out of all of this. They’ve given up asking me to stay. You can only ask someone so many times, you see. And at least now I don’t have to feel embarrassed about declining. Everyone deals with these things in their own way. That is what Jennifer says.

Melody miaows again. I let Matthew name her. Even when he was young I could trust him to do things like that. He was always such a sensible child. He chose it because she used to walk along the keys when he was practising the piano. I suppose the name overstates Melody’s musical capabilities somewhat but it does have such a lovely, lyrical tone. It would have been a nice name for a girl. I often used to think that. Melody or Meredith. You don’t hear those names nowadays. They say that all names come round again in time but I have not heard those two. I have several Olivias who come to me for piano lessons, which is nice as it was my mother’s name. And at least two Graces – though I have noticed that those who are called Grace rarely possess the quality themselves. No Melodies or Merediths though. Or Muriels, come to that. I think my name is one which has been consigned to history, never to be brought out again. There was a film about a girl of the same name some years ago. Awful thing it was. Australian. A rather uncouth young woman playing the supposed bride-to-be. I remember sitting through the whole thing and not laughing once while those around me appeared to find it hilarious. I do not go the cinema very often. Perhaps that is why.

Melody miaows for a third time. That is my cue to get up. I put on my slippers, pull my dressing gown over my nightdress and walk over to the sash window. I draw back the curtains and twist the blinds just enough so
that I can see the world but it can’t see me. I look beyond the rows of terraced houses to the line of trees in the distance. Matthew used to love living so close to the park. It made up for not having a proper garden. Only a paved yard at the back and a small, neat front rose garden, not the sort a child could play out in.

The park provided open space for him to let off steam. Not that he used to charge around it like so many children do nowadays. But he could play on the grass. We would sit and make daisy chains. Little boys would sit still and do such things in those days. He would wear the crown of daisies on his head for the rest of the day, telling anyone who asked that he was the prince of the fairies. Never the king. Always the prince.

I sigh and turn away. Sometimes it is too painful to remember him like that. When these empty-nesters complain about missing their offspring once they have gone to university, I don’t think it is the eighteen-year-olds they miss. It is the children they once were.

As soon as I pull into Mum’s road I become sixteen again. You would have thought after twenty years I would have broken free of the place. Not so. I hear Alex saying, ‘You can take the girl out of Mixenden . . .’ He never gets any further than that because I always give him a clout. It’s not that I’m embarrassed about where I grew up. Not really. Simply that I like to think I’ve moved on. I’m not known as the ‘chippy girl’ in Warley for a start. We don’t even have a chippy in Warley. Although I smile as I remember Mum saying, ‘Well, what on earth are you going to do for your tea on Friday night?’ when I told her we were moving there.

Still, there’s something reassuringly familiar about my old road. The cluster of precariously angled Sky dishes, the broken cooker dumped in the front garden
of number 12 that’s been there for as long as I can remember, the kids hanging about on the corner, mouthing off at each other and taking the piss out of whichever one of them hasn’t got the right trainers on.

I swerve to avoid a pile of glass in the road and pull up outside Mum’s house. Ella is at the front door before I have even turned off the car engine. She jumps up and down and waves something in the air from the doorstep. Mum is standing behind her, wiping her hands on her apron. She looks knackered. It’s easy to forget how much of a handful Ella is and that Mum isn’t as young as she used to be. Added to which she isn’t good in the heat; the tan is out of a bottle.

‘Mummy,’ shouts Ella, running out onto the pavement to throw her arms around me. There are tell–tale smears of chocolate on her face.

I shake my head and smile down at her. ‘Hello, chocolate-chops.’

‘We had choc ices at Charlie’s party. They’re like Magnums but they forgot to put sticks in them.’

‘Lucky you.’

‘Grandma says I’m a lucky girl because I’ve had ice cream every day this week.’

I give Mum the same look she used to give me when she caught me wearing her shoes as a teenager.

Mum shrugs. ‘Well, a few ice creams never did you any harm. I mean look at the size of you. Proper skinny-minny you are.’

I resist the urge to point out that being a gym instructor and running ten miles a week may have something to do with it.