Whatever it takes, p.4
Whatever It Takes, page 4
‘I meant are you the sort of mother who refers to her son’s willy as a penis?’
‘I’m not any sort of mother,’ Sara stated bluntly, and the words ripped at her heart. Her comment was almost too much for the ladies to compute. Sara could practically see the cogs in their minds whirring as they wondered whether she was objecting to being labelled as a particular type of mum. It was true that mum labelling was rarely complimentary. The presuming adjectives usually included words such as obsessive, fussy, pushy or neglectful; even alpha had become a derogatory term. Sara was perplexed. How could she know this and still long to join the club? It took a moment but then Harry’s mum cottoned on to the fact that Sara didn’t have any children.
‘Are you trying?’ she asked boldly.
Sara checked her watch. She’d known these women for about seven and a half minutes which seemed to be the required length of time people needed to have been introduced before they asked this sort of intimate question. Sara thought that she probably ought to be offended but in fact she was always delighted to have the opportunity to talk about the subject that was forever on her mind.
‘Currently enduring my fourth round of IVF,’ she replied frankly.
‘Poor thing.’
‘Oh dear.’
Both women patted her arm. She was swaddled in their sympathy and concern. In that moment she loved them with a sudden but intense love.
‘After I had Lucy, I tried to conceive for nearly two years. No luck. So I had IVF and then we got twin boys. Tom and Eddie.’ Lucy’s mum beamed at Sara, certain she’d just delivered a message of hope.
‘First round?’ Sara asked.
‘Yes!’
Sara stared at Lucy’s mother, who was also the mother of Tom and Eddie, and she hated her. It was a cold and certain hate that sliced ruthlessly through Sara’s body. She had Lucy, she didn’t need more. Why was her IVF successful? Why weren’t these things fair? Suddenly Sara wanted to throw her drink over the beaming blonde or slam her stiletto into her exposed flip-flop-shod foot. She’d have liked to have slapped her or hunted around for one of her babies to snatch him up! This woman didn’t need three children! But, through superhuman control, Sara managed simply to say, ‘If you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve just spotted someone I know who I ought to say hello to.’ Then she walked away, quickly, before they saw the angry tears brimming.
3
Margaret watched as the eighth bucket of dirty water swilled down the square stone kitchen sink, a feature of Eloise and Mark’s new home. It swashed and sloshed, draining away the dirt in a wholly gratifying way. She rinsed the sink clean, wrung out the floor cloth and then peeled off her rubber gloves before she let out a deep, satisfied sigh. Ray quietly tutted and placed a mug of strong tea on the surface next to the Aga; he did this with an air that was calculated to show he was weary of watching her clean and that he disapproved. He often wearied of watching her clean long before she wearied of doing the cleaning. It was guilt. Good and proper. He was not a cleaner, never had been and never would be. There weren’t many men of his generation that chipped in that way. He was very good with anything involving a ladder and Margaret had never in her life had to cut the grass, but Ray did little in the way of helping out around the house. He used to make the beds when that task still required the neat tucking in of sheets and blankets; that was the result of his army training as Ray was part of one of the last batches of young men called up to do National Service, a lifetime ago now. Precisely tucked sheets were the result of habit, rather than an impulse to be useful. He was proud of his symmetrical, systematic approach to bed making, but now they used a duvet so he didn’t bother; there was no challenge in flicking a duvet. Still, as he’d brought Margaret a cup of tea, she decided not to be antagonistic but rather to be conciliatory.
‘I’m nearly done here,’ she said brightly.
‘Yes, I should think so. You’re too old to be on your knees scrubbing all day,’ he commented gruffly.
‘Thank you very much,’ Margaret replied with indignation. ‘I’m no such thing. I’m fifty-seven and that’s not old.’
‘Margaret, we’ve been married forty-nine years and we got married when you were twenty-one, that doesn’t add up.’
She didn’t dignify his comment with an answer. Forty-nine. Twenty-one. Added together those numbers were enormous. A lady shouldn’t have to reveal her age. Margaret thought about it. She knew that pop star – what was her name? Angel? No. Mary? No, that’s not a pop star’s name. But it’s something religious. She would have asked Ray but he had a bee in his bonnet about how forgetful she was at the moment so she didn’t want to draw attention to another lapse. Anyway, Margaret knew that the pop star, whatever her name was, was always shouting about the fact that she was the wrong side of fifty but she could, couldn’t she? It was all very well for her, with her army of nutritionalists, yoga teachers and what have you. And Helen Mirren was another one always going on about her age. Yes, yes, we get it, you’ve said, you still look and feel hot even though you’re sixty-seven! Yet some of us have to grow old; gracefully or disgracefully is our choice but we do have to get old. The likes of film stars seemed to believe that truth didn’t apply to them, and somehow it didn’t, admitted Margaret.
Margaret was not sure that she had ever been truly young. She couldn’t remember feeling abandon (which surely was a privilege and proof of youth), she doubted she ever had. Marrying at twenty-one meant she’d had to grow up pretty damn sharpish. It was a few years before everyone else had caught her up and got married. Then, ironically, her friends had overtaken her. Lapped her. Margaret hadn’t had Mark until much later than all her friends had had their children, so by the time she did have a baby she’d felt very old to be a new mum. And she’d been ancient since 1991, that was for certain. She knew the exact day she had turned ancient. She remembered it very well, no matter what Ray said about her poor memory.
Mark had come home from university for the weekend and he’d brought a young girl with him. Nice enough she was. Nicky or Vicky or maybe Lizzie. Anyway, she’d worn her hair very short, cropped close to her head, but she’d had a pretty elfin-shaped face, a bit like, oh, what was her name? Katharine Hepburn? No, not her, the other one – Audrey, Audrey Hepburn. She’d had an elfin face like hers, this girl had, so she could carry off the short hair. She’d worn dungarees, it was the fashion then. Not a very flattering fashion but then fashion rarely is. Well, Margaret had made up the spare room for this girlfriend of his, but when she’d shown the girl where she was to sleep, the girl had just laughed. Laughed straight at Margaret.
‘Oh, Mrs Hamilton, I don’t think we need to mess up your spare room. Who would we be kidding? Mark and I will sleep together, like we do at uni.’
That’s what she’d said. No embarrassment. No shame. No tact! Smiled at Margaret. Beamed. As though she thought Margaret would be pleased that she’d have one less set of sheets to wash and iron after the weekend. As though she didn’t realise Margaret was a mother, Mark’s mother, and that she might have sensibilities or at least a say. Ray had laughed his head off when Margaret told him. He’d said, ‘Isn’t that what you’d have loved to have told my mother?’
‘But we didn’t sleep together before we were married, Ray,’ Margaret had pointed out.
‘Well, not for my lack of trying,’ he’d chuckled.
Margaret had been forty-nine years old at the time and she’d felt one hundred and forty-nine. It wasn’t even the fact that she had a son old enough to be, you know, adult. It was more that this girl was so different from anyone Margaret had ever been. Her experiences and attitude were light years away from anything the older woman might even imagine.
That was the day she’d become officially ancient.
‘Eloise won’t appreciate it, you know,’ said Ray darkly, as he slurped on his cup of tea. Margaret wondered why he was being so tetchy. Maybe it was because it had rained all day for three days here in Dartmouth. He hadn’t been able to get out to play golf; that always left him very grumpy. Even old dogs needed to stretch their legs.
‘I think she will,’ Margaret replied smoothly.
‘No girl wants her mother-in-law interfering with her domestic arrangements.’
‘Ray, I haven’t employed a staff of seven or ordered curtains. I’ve just scrubbed the flagstone floors and washed the—’ Goodness, what was the word for the look-throughs? She was always susceptible to senior moments when Ray started to get irritable. The stress passed between them like a relay baton. ‘I’ve just washed the glass. I think Eloise will be pleased. She never has much time with three girls to look after and when she gets here she’ll have all the unpacking to do. I just want her to feel settled as soon as possible.’
Ray looked at his wife and the look was one of warning. What was he worried about? she wondered. He often looked concerned nowadays; he used to be such a relaxed man. Maybe he thought she wanted this move too much. Maybe he thought it would end in tears if she couldn’t remain casual.
Margaret was trying to remain calm, sane. Trying not to get too giddy, too overwhelmed and therefore overwhelming. But it was not easy because she couldn’t remember when she’d last been this excited. She was so, so delighted that her daughter-in-law had finally agreed to move the family to Dartmouth. She was certain that Mark would have moved here years ago, given the choice, but Eloise was very London. She thought the air here was too clean to inhale. Margaret didn’t blame Eloise (well, at least not openly), she realised and accepted that people had different tastes, needs and ambitions but she was glad that Eloise’s tastes, needs and ambitions had finally fallen in line with her own. That was all.
‘Be happy for me, Ray. To have my family close by is a dream come true.’
‘They’re my family too,’ he said.
‘I know, which is why you understand.’ Margaret wanted to be placatory. She wasn’t in the mood for a niggling row but, honestly, she wasn’t sure he did understand, not exactly. Ray had been a wonderful father to Mark and, of course, he loved their granddaughters with all his heart, but it was different for him, he had other things in his life too. He had his solicitor’s practice, his golf club buddies and his drinking buddies. He was happy walking to the embankment and chatting with the fishermen, he’d even experimented with a bit of watercolour painting last summer. His work and these hobbies filled his days. Margaret had never been one for hobbies. She liked to fill her days with family, that was what it was all about for her. It always had been.
‘What are you doing with that bucket?’ demanded Ray.
Margaret froze and focused. She followed Ray’s gaze to try to work out what had caused his tone of outrage. It took a moment of intense concentration but then she realised that she’d just stacked the fire logs in the plastic bucket, when she’d meant to put them in the wicker basket that she’d bought especially for the purpose.
‘Oh dear,’ she mumbled, embarrassed.
‘You’re tired,’ he pronounced. She nodded passively and then started to take the logs out of the bucket and place them carefully in the basket. ‘Sit down, drink your tea. I’ll do it.’ His tone was softer. She let him take over because it was good that Ray got involved in preparations for Mark and, besides, he must be right that she’d been overdoing it.
‘We only have Mark,’ she said.
She didn’t intend to say it loud enough for Ray to hear her and she didn’t know if he had or hadn’t, because it was not the sort of remark he’d comment on. Too emotional. Too much. Margaret would have liked more children but it wasn’t to be, so she’d made much of Mark. She hadn’t spoilt him, exactly, although that’s what most people thought happened to an only child. No, he wasn’t spoilt, not in the sense that they’d lavished expensive gifts and a private education on him, but Margaret supposed she had lavished her time on him. She had been a stay-at-home mum. There really wasn’t any other sort in her day. Well, some women did bits for pin money – cleaning, factories, shop work, that sort of caper – but they did it around the children’s school hours and no one called it a career. No one kidded themselves that they could have it all. Anyway, Margaret had been lucky that Ray earned enough for her not to have to go out to work, even for pin money. Her job was their home. And Mark.
She’d never missed a football game or a sports day. She’d picked him up from the school gate every afternoon until he was thirteen and he’d pleaded with her not to. She used to love that journey home, just the two of them. The daily ferry crossings were an adventure that they’d never tired of. They’d stay on the deck, even when the wind bit and it was raining pins. Obviously, it was best in the sunshine, sitting with their backs flat against the warm wooden slats of the bench. Margaret would point out the greedy gulls and the fishermen’s lobster nets drying on the embankment. They’d breathe in the estuary air and the smell of the boat fuel with hearty delight; he chattering about his day, his triumphs and his frustrations, she soaking up every word.
They’d walked everywhere when he was very young. Margaret had only learnt to drive when Mark was a teenager, her motivation being that she could take him to and from his pals’ homes, the ones who lived in the outlying villages; she didn’t want him getting in a car with anyone who might have had a drink. Sometimes it had been the three of them on the walks but often it was just Mark and Margaret. It was a couple of miles up, across and down the other side of the hill, until they were at the best beach cove. A hearty walk but it was always worth it. They’d spent hours banging on buckets with plastic spades, searching for shells, getting damp with spray and then they’d warm up again by drinking tea from a flask and feasting on ham sandwiches. They listened to the waves making music. Sometimes, at night, if Margaret couldn’t fall asleep, she thought of the sound of the waves breaking themselves to pieces on the shingle. Shush, shuushhh. It was comforting, like a lullaby.
They’d waited a long time for Mark. Margaret had been thirty before she became a mum. That would be classed as a young mum now, by many, but in the early seventies Margaret was seen as positively geriatric. So when he did finally come along she’d lavished her time on him, who wouldn’t have? It was natural. Besides, he was an easy boy to love. Affectionate, funny, bonny, athletic, smart. What you’d call an all-rounder. Everyone who’d ever met Mark had loved him.
But Margaret was sure she’d always loved him the most.
Eloise loved him, of course she did; Margaret knew that. She was a good wife. They were right for each other. They made one another happy, which was all that mattered. They brought up the girls very nicely indeed. It wasn’t all crop tops and ‘Whatever!’ with their three and Margaret saw that was so often the case with her friends’ grandchildren.
But a wife’s love was different. Married love had conditions attached, things to be negotiated, cracks to paper over. Tempests to be navigated. Passionate highs and barren lows.
A mother’s love was unconditional. Margaret could never say no to Mark. She wouldn’t have been able to hold out for fifteen years knowing that he wanted to live in Dartmouth, just because she’d needed to be near a particular patisserie or handbag shop or something or other.
Mind you, Margaret wasn’t going to be caught grumbling. Eloise had finally agreed to move here and for that Margaret would be eternally grateful. Margaret had the sense to know that a mother-in-law should never pitch herself against her daughter-in-law because, if the mother had done her job properly, the lad would always side with his wife. She just wanted to be useful to them – to help with babysitting and school runs, and she planned to do the shopping and a bit round the house. When they’d lived in London Margaret had always felt that she was too far away to be useful.
To be loved.
‘I want to clap my hands with joy when I think about them arriving tomorrow,’ she gushed to Ray.
‘They’re arriving Tuesday, not tomorrow.’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s three days’ time.’
‘Yes, that’s what I said. My family living here, just a ten-minute walk away, it’s a dream come true!’
Ray raised his bushy, white eyebrows. He had very animated eyebrows. When they’d courted, Margaret used to think he was just like Sean Connery, in that respect. His eyebrows were smooth and dark and cocky in those days. Now it looked as though a couple of friendly, furry albino caterpillars were on the loose. Not so much debonair, more daft.
Margaret didn’t know when it happened for him. Getting old. Ray’s aging had been more gradual than her own; a liver spot appearing from nowhere, a click in his back when he got out of bed too suddenly, some shortness of breath when he climbed the steps in town, preferring a good book and a cuddle rather than the other. She didn’t mind, though. Getting old together was what she’d expected, what she’d hoped for. What would Emily say? ‘What she’d signed up for.’ That was it. Getting old with Ray was what Margaret had signed up for.
‘Madonna!’ Margaret shouted suddenly in triumph.
‘What?’ Ray looked bemused.
‘That’s the name of the woman I was on about. The one who doesn’t get old.’
‘I’ve no idea what you are talking about, Margaret.’
‘Oh keep up, Ray, keep up,’ Margaret chuckled.
4
It was after ten p.m. The party had been bouncing for a record-breaking six hours and a quick glance around the carnage suggested that it wasn’t likely to fold for a couple more yet. The children had been herded into the bedrooms and were more or less settled for the night, although nine p.m. had been ugly. Tearful, exhausted and jacked up on cupcakes, the kids had fought with their slightly drunken parents about the importance of cleaning their teeth or changing into pyjamas. To be frank, when challenged, none of the adults could really recall why it was so important to take off socks or comb hair; it was hard to retain adult logic after a few glasses of champers.
