* * *
In the cocoon of my cab, I remember a day years ago, when our parents took us to the zoo. No, it wasn’t a zoo; it was a wildlife park, in the grounds of a country estate, rhinos roaming around outside a Victorian manor house, all a bit incongruous. We went because Rose had been given free tickets by a friend, and although she had no interest in going, she thought it might be construed as ungrateful and rude if she didn’t use them and report back. I would have been about ten, and Maz seven or eight. Dad drove us there, with the intention to send us round the park on our own while they sat in the car, but they must have had an argument or something because we’d barely got past the wallabies when Rose caught up with us, looking out of breath and irritable. She joined us just as we were approaching the reindeer. Maz always says they were alpacas but they weren’t because I remember the sign.
‘Don’t!’ was the first thing she said when she saw us. One of the reindeer was rubbing up against the fence, trying to scratch himself, and Maz was reaching out to help him. ‘They’re dirty.’
‘I’ll wash my hands,’ Maz promised, her little fingers itching away at his thick fur. The reindeer grunted in pleasure. As luck would have it, one of the caretakers arrived with a bucket of feed, and he let us have a handful, so Maz was able to let the animal snuffle at her palm, huffing and grunting as she giggled and squealed. She was enthralled and although my mother disapproved, she didn’t like to say so in front of the staff, just watched with slight anxiety as the herd gathered around us, sniffing and nudging. The food was soon gone, and therefore the reindeer, who don’t tend to stick around unless there’s something in it for them. They turned their attention to the caretaker, who had more of the good stuff. As he bent down to empty the bucket into their trough, one of the biggest reindeer butted him, caught him at a bad angle, and he tumbled, flat into the mud. It had been a rainy summer, and it was a proper pratfall. Rose fell about.
I’d never seen my mother laugh like that. Not her usual tinkly ‘how very amusing’ titter, but a full-throated guffaw that shook her whole body and flung her head back. We thought it was pretty funny as well, but mainly we were laughing at her; with her. Sharing the joke. When she finally stopped, her cheeks were pink and her eyes bright. She took us to the café to wash our hands, and then bought us an ice cream each, ones with a chocolate flake and sprinkles, and when Maz dropped her flake, rather than scold she just said ‘Butterfingers!’ plucked it from the floor and plonked it straight back in the cone. The laugh seemed to have relaxed her, and she sat with a coffee, listening to us talk about the animals, smiling when Maz said one day she would have her own farm. She even took us to the little park playground, pushed us on the swings, applauded when we came down the slide. I’d never had such a prolonged and focused interaction with her, and it was a revelation. When we got back to the car, she flopped into her seat with a happy sigh and said ‘Well, Jack, you missed a treat.’ And he grunted like the reindeer and started the engine. By the time we got home she was back to her normal self, tutting, preoccupied, wiping our finger drawings off the windows.
But at bedtime, when we were usually dispatched and left to our own devices, she put her head round the door to quell the chattering.
‘Quiet, please! Your father is watching television.’
‘That was the best day of my life,’ Maz said.
Rose paused, her hand on the light switch. ‘Mine too,’ she replied, and I saw Maz wriggle in delight just before the room was plunged into darkness.
It wasn’t, of course, but I liked that she said it. I didn’t have any dreams at all that night. Not a single one.
46
It’s half one in the morning by the time I arrive home, but there are still lights on inside the house. Robbie will have left a pint of water on the kitchen table – that’s what we do for each other when one of us goes out on the lash. I always think it’s a very tender form of passive aggression: ‘You’re drunk, drink this.’ Sometimes we leave tablets too, if we know it’s going to be a big night, though of course such nights are rare nowadays. I think of the Vicodin I took this morning – surely it will have left my system now? Along with whatever else assailed and fired me today – I can feel it all draining away with every breath. Back to normal. Whatever normal is.
I say goodnight to the lovely Stanislaw, who opens the door and helps me out, an anxious steward. We part by the front gate. He shakes my hand and says ‘Co się stało, to się nie odstanie.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Polish saying. What’s done is done. How do you say, the phrase about milk?’
‘Don’t cry over spilled milk?’
‘Exactly. Co z oczu to z serca. Out of your eyes, out of your heart. Put it behind you.’
We should get this guy on TV; he could be an agony uncle dispensing his wisdom to the masses and make a fortune, instead of driving Ubers. But who am I to say that being a taxi driver isn’t just as fulfilling? So I don’t get out my business card, I just press his hand and say ‘Dziękuję.’ I can say please, thank you and sorry in many, many languages, because I like to be prepared. Some might say that’s crazy, but I think it’s just polite. You never know. As is being proved, this very moment, at my own front door.
Stanislaw bows and releases me and I walk down the path looking at our lintel, illuminated by the security light Robbie installed. 1680. All the drama that this house has seen. The births and deaths and shouting and laughter and dinners and sex and quiet contemplation. All the spilled milk. Whatever has happened to me today is probably nothing compared to what went before. He’s right: what’s done is done and it’s time to consign it to history.
I let myself in, quietly, bending to stroke Grizelda, who weaves around me miaowing, pretending she hasn’t been fed. Actually, she may not have been, because everyone in my household tends to assume someone else has done it, and by someone else, I mean me. Usually, this would pull out a tiny grenade pin, cause a little light fuming as I make myself a cup of tea flavoured with bitterness, but right now I think it’s nice to be the lintel in the Hendry family. Without me, they’d crumble. Also, Grizelda loves – well, tolerates – me best, so I win.
In the kitchen, there’s the pint of water waiting, and Robbie with it, sitting in a dishevelled suit looking exhausted. Instead of tablets, there’s the empty Vicodin packet.
He nods towards it. ‘Exceptional circumstances?’
‘Unprecedented. Bit weird, checking the bin?’ Taking a sip of my water, I finger the sharp edges of the foil and plastic.
‘Lost my bank card.’
‘Why would it be in the bin?’
‘Threw it in with the takeaway cartons.’ He grins as I roll my eyes.
‘I leave you all for five minutes . . .’ Flicking the kettle on, I root around for a tea bag.
‘Speaking of which . . .’ Robbie hands me the milk. ‘Would you like to tell me about the “five minutes” you’ve been gone? Because I’ve had calls from Petroc, and Maz, who are both worried, and Glynis Johnson from your book group, who thinks you’re unwell. Then there’s Hazel saying you’re insane and she’s been arrested because you told her to go on a climate crusade. Nice hair, by the way.’ He tweaks one of my curls. ‘And the dress.’
‘How did you get her out? Was it awful?’ I pour hot water over the bag, watching the leaves infuse the liquid, leaving their mark.
‘Of course not. She’s a sixteen-year-old middle-class white girl and I’m a forty-six-year-old lawyer. Everyone was very polite and apologetic. Unfortunately, Hazel’s new boyfriend isn’t so lucky. I had to get him out as well. With less politeness, and fewer apologies.’
‘Hazel’s boyfriend?’ I can feel myself smirking. He was so handsome and idealistic.
‘I’m going to rock on my heels and brandish the shotgun tomorrow. Right now, I’m too tired. But I want to know about you. What happened?’
I sigh, closing my eyes against the tears. I’m tired too. So very tired.
‘It was such a long day. Can we do it tomorrow?’ Obviously, I’m going to tell him everything. But it feels like too much to go into at nearly two o’clock in the morning – taking the pin out of a much bigger grenade. Also, I suspect a certain disgraced CEO of a US media conglomerate will be on the first flight from Heathrow, and I’d really rather he was out of the country before Robbie is any the wiser, otherwise his shotgun might get some use.
There’s a pause as my husband ponders, his urge to know battling his urge to sleep. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘But try not to take any more out-of-date drugs.’
‘No, sir. Only fresh narcotics for me from now on.’
He laughs, and kisses me. ‘I’m going up. Don’t be long.’
I sit for a while sipping my tea, watching the cat, who has curled up for a night-time nap on the draining board of the sink. She takes great pleasure in resting in awkward places, looking hugely attractive while doing so. Grizelda does exactly as she likes, all the time – we can take it or leave it, and of course not only do we take it; we love her for it. But cats can get away with that, day in day out, whereas we humans have to compromise. Maybe not please and thank you and sorry in every language, at every step, but at least general politeness and the occasional apology. Bagels now and then. And that’s not being feeble, it’s just being nice.
Switching off the lights, I make my way upstairs, to Hazel’s room, and gently push the door open. She’s asleep on her silken pillow, hair fanning out around her head, all kinked from the plaits. She’s smiling, like she’s having a pleasant dream, and she looks beautiful, with my mother’s cheekbones. Dear, silly, vain, funny, crusading girl. I close the door again and head to Ethan’s room.
‘Shit.’ He’s lying on the bed, mid-spliff, too dazed to react quickly enough.
I raise my eyebrows. ‘Caught red-handed.’
He moves to stub it out.
‘Uh-uh.’ I shake my head. ‘Give it here.’
His expression is lugubrious, anticipating the destruction of his tenderly rolled creation, and when, instead of grinding it out, I take a pull, he blinks, processing everything very slowly. With the joint still smouldering between my fingers, I sit on his bed.
‘Budge up.’
He shifts over, and I lie down next to him, offering him the roll-up. For a second he just looks at me sideways, still stupefied, then takes it and inhales cautiously.
‘Can we agree that if this is the last one you’re going to have – and I want it to be – that we may as well enjoy it?’
Because Covid never affected our sense of smell, we’ve been aware of Ethan’s penchant for the occasional spliff, and, after much agonizing, mainly on my part, decided we would kick the cannabis down the road. At least he was doing it in the comfort of his own room and not on street corners, at least it was just hash, at least he wasn’t a total stoner, etc. I fretted that it’s a gateway drug and that we should really stamp on it straight away, but was wary of doing so, because I worried we would drive it underground, make it temptingly forbidden fruit. How to play it? Now I realize I just have to do it with him to make it ludicrously uncool. It’s clear it’s working – he’s utterly appalled. Dope is no longer dope. Not now he’s watched his mother inhale.
‘Didn’t know you were into this,’ he mumbles, scarlet with embarrassment, passing it back.
‘I remember my first joint, at a Valentine’s school disco in 1992,’ I say, breathing in the heady honeyed fumes. ‘Afterwards, I snogged a boy called Eustace MacQuoid. It turned out he also snogged my best friend Sophie, so I spent the rest of the evening crying and being sick in the toilets. Not my best night.’
