Getting Home Page 11

  Somehow, in the six weeks Stewart had been missing, treacherous paper had crept on to his desk. Here was a note she had written herself about ferns, a catalogue of children’s clothes, the leaflet from a new moisturiser, a couple of cards from her Rolodex. Here also was the morning’s mail, and among it something she had read once and hidden under the rest until she was ready to read it again, a letter from Marcus. ‘I am sending on to you a note from the partnership’s insurers … you should be aware that in this situation we can continue to pay Stewart’s salary at the full rate only until next month and at 50 per cent for a further three months afterwards. Our cover does not extend beyond that time.’

  Marcus was a pig. Everything was money to him, his heart was a balance sheet, his veins ran dollars. He should be lying filthy and unshaven chained to the wall in some windowless concrete basement crawling with cockroaches, and Stewart should be here at this desk, the bridge of this enterprise, their family.

  The letter ought to be filed. She wanted to burn it. It would poison the house. People did not write such letters unless they had legal significance, it had to be kept. In the end she devised a compromise, screwed it into a ball and threw it into the waste bin, planning to recover it when she felt better. You’re crazy, she told herself. Without Stewart you’re going mad.

  She went back to the map. How had they travelled 250 miles? In a car with a gun to his head and a jittery finger on the trigger and potholes in the road? The Beirut hostages had been taped up like mummies and nailed into crates like coffins. Why had she ever agreed to see Pulp Fiction? Horrible muddled visions were filling her empty head when the doorbell rang.

  In the morning, doorbells in Westwick rang for service calls – the dog walkers, laundry deliveries and Derek and Dave reporting with the summer bedding for her clients, who abhorred contact with the soil. Stephanie did not see herself as mature enough to need such services. From behind the curtains of Max’s room she saw Lauren Pike on her front path.

  ‘I thought perhaps it was about time I came round.’ Being trim, immaculate and blonde, Lauren was not a natural for the role of Hera in the neighbourhood Olympus. Allie had once compared her to a West Highland Terrier, game for anything in her jolly little way. As was required of the wife of the BSD, Lauren had grand manner to assume for the right occasion, and Stephanie saw that this visit was such an event. Lauren had put on a suit, and carried a folder.

  ‘You know we’ve started a victim support scheme,’ she opened, tight-jawed. ‘We get names passed to us by the police. When your name came up, since I know you, it seemed the natural thing. But, listen, you can send me away if you want. I’ll quite understand. I mean, you might prefer to talk to someone you don’t know. It can be easier. Or you might be perfectly OK and not want to talk to anyone. We’re just here to offer support if you think it’s something you’d like.’

  ‘Oh. Oh – well, how wonderful.’ Stephanie felt quite feeble with relief.

  ‘You’re sure? I wouldn’t be at all offended, really …’ Lauren stood resolute on the doorstep, unwilling to risk the offence of intrusion until positively assured.

  ‘Lauren, I’m quite sure. You’re a dear, kind friend to take me on. Do, come in. I’ll make us some tea.’ At last. Another sign of madness; she had started communicating in two modes, verbally with the rest of the world to whom she said what was necessary, internally with a voice that said what she thought. At last. All these days she had been standing in pain, and all around her people had been brightly correct, concerned to distract her, comfort her, make her strong. She had begun the conspiracy herself, frantic to betray nothing when what she really wanted to do was lie on the ground and scream. Weeping through a box of tissues under Lauren’s guidance might be almost as good. Bless this excellent social ecosystem, this community that contained everything necessary for life to flourish.

  They sat in the garden. Lauren took the centre of the bench and kept her legs parallel and away from the wood for fear of splinters. Her ankles, girlish perfection when in tennis socks, looked brittle and fussy out of them. She pulled the hem of her dark blue skirt even. Navy blue, Stewart had once said, was the pink of Maple Grove.

  ‘There hasn’t been any more news?’

  ‘I’d just finished speaking to the Foreign Office when you arrived. They’ve narrowed it down to one city.’

  ‘That’s encouraging, isn’t it?’ Brightly, she opened the folder and Stephanie glimpsed Nile-green sheets of fuzzy recycled paper. ‘So they’re being good about keeping in touch then. Do you think this man feels disappointed when they’ve got nothing to tell you?’

  ‘Yes, maybe.’

  Lauren uncapped her fat Mont Blanc pen, then put it down and reached for her cup of tea. She had asked for peppermint tea with sweeteners. In her own home she had loose-leaf tea in spherical silver infusers. Her hand paused over the cup; she seemed unable to decide what to do with her tea bag. ‘And how about Max? You’ve explained it all to him, I suppose?’

  Stephanie sighed, feeling she had been cowardly here. ‘Sort of. They have such a vague sense of time at this age, don’t they? I’m not sure he can really understand.’

  ‘I should know – how old is he, exactly?’ There were forms in the folder, and Stephanie noticed that the prissy way Lauren had chosen to sit aslant the bench enabled her to hide what she was writing.

  ‘He’ll be six in November.’

  ‘And does he ask after his father?’

  ‘Well – you know Max.’ Felix, the youngest of the three Pike children, was in the same class as Max at The Magpies. Between the two boys existed an absolute void of empathy; as far as Stephanie could discover they did not dislike each other, merely recognised, with the cruel sincerity of infants, that they shared absolutely nothing beyond the same class environment for thirty hours a week. ‘He’s just like his father, really. A boy of few words. He never asks for anything except to watch Rug Rats on Saturday morning.’

  Lauren raised her Ventolin and took a shot. She did not approve of Rug Rats. ‘So his father didn’t communicate very, well?’

  ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t say that at all. Stewart’s a talker, definitely. That’s why he tends to do these trips – the early client contact is his responsibility because he’s naturally just very persuasive when he’s talking about something he believes in. But when there’s something on his mind, you’d only know because he won’t talk about it.’

  Lauren was not writing anything. She fiddled with her inhaler, turning it end over end on the table top; she had her head on one side with a small fixed smile and seemed to be widening her eyes like a pair of zoom lenses. Stephanie bad never witnessed this performance before. ‘And you feel Max imitates Stewart?’

  ‘Not exactly – I think they’re quite like each other, that’s all.’

  ‘So Max accepts him; there weren’t any difficulties with that?’

  Shaking her head, Stephanie felt uneasy. Now Lauren was fussing with her folder. She had clearly been hoping for some disclosure which Stephanie had not made. Her speech was flattening under a ridiculous artificial modulation. ‘And how long is it that you’ve been married?’

  ‘Almost seven years. Our anniversary’s this month. Isn’t that corny – a June bride?’

  ‘Most people would say it was very nice.’ She was writing now, taut strokes of the pen putting hieroglyphs on the form. ‘Seven years, did you say?’

  ‘Yes.’ Disbelief – she actually sensed it and she was sure she was right. ‘I was there when we got married, you know. I’ve got pictures to prove it.’ This was not working out as Stephanie had hoped.

  The zoom lenses and the weird grin were Lauren’s professional manner, intended to convey a superior, enlightened sympathy. ‘Oh yes, that’s your wedding photograph in the dining room, isn’t it? I remember it. Very pretty dress. So – about you and Stewart, how were things before he went away?’

  ‘The same as always. Just normal.’

  ‘Just normal.’

  ‘We
didn’t have any problems, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘No problems.’ Her eyes were almost popping now.

  ‘Why?’ Distinctly, Stephanie was aware of feeling harried.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Yes – Lauren, I’m mystified. Why would how things were in our marriage be significant? Or how long we’d been married. It’s not as if I could arrange for him to be kidnapped because he kept leaving the toilet seat up or something.’

  ‘Stephanie – you’ve lost me. Nobody was suggesting, … look, perhaps this wasn’t the best idea.’ She snapped the folder closed in disappointment. ‘Let me give you our helpline number; if there is anything you need to talk about you can ring. Any time, it’s twenty-four hours. People take turns to be on call. We can put you in touch with a trained counsellor in your area if later on perhaps you feel you can’t cope or you’d like to see someone. OK?’ Now she was on her feet and preparing to go, almost squeaking with the desire to be elsewhere and leave this embarrassing interlude behind.

  In the hall she stopped and said she needed to use the bathroom, and put her folder and her pen on their claw-footed Empire console. It was one of the symbols of the early Stewart and Stephanie days, dragged home in five shards from a junk shop after their honeymoon and kept in a cupboard for two years before Stewart took a month to fix it together and Stephanie added the lightly distressed paint finish and metal-gilding on the carving.

  Stephanie opened the folder. The form was headed ‘Helford & Westwick Victim Support’. She ran her eye down it, deciphering words in Lauren’s large, loopy script. She read: ‘Son/stepfather rel?’ The word ‘denial’stood out. ‘Withdrawn’could be distinguished. She heard the lavatory flush and closed the folder.

  ‘Shall we see you at The Cedars later?’ Lauren had recomposed herself as if she kept poise in a handbag compact ready to freshen up during the day. ‘It’s our class today, isn’t it?’ Bunbuster was the kind of word which did not fit in Lauren’s mouth.

  For a merciful moment, Stephanie had no breath with which to reply. Options rushed past – smile, agree, comply? Smile, evade, withdraw? Challenge, demand, protest? To her surprise, she caught the last set by the tail.

  ‘Lauren, could I look at that form?’

  ‘It won’t help you,’ was the tart reply, and the form was picked up with ceremony to invest it with official status. ‘They’re just for us. They’re confidential.’

  Stephanie caught her nervous gaze and held it to the point of rudeness. Lauren’s irises were chalky and opaque, the blinds were down on the windows to her soul. Under her make-up, she was colouring but she would not be stared down. In the end, Stephanie said, ‘Lauren, this is me – please, can we talk about this like women? I’ve looked at it already. Of course you’re entitled to write what you want, but I don’t understand things like “stepfather”. Stewart’s parents have been married thirty years, he has no stepfather. I’m concerned that you’re recording stuff that isn’t right. And I’m concerned anyway – I don’t know what that conversation in the garden just now was all about.’

  Lauren was now a colour close to that of Maple Grove brick, and blinking emphatically. Her small chest heaved as she redoubled her self-control. ‘I’m so sorry that you saw that,’ she returned on gracious autopilot. ‘That really should not have happened. We – we get our information passed on from the police and someone has obviously made a mistake. And of course, I was misguided to take your case, I can appreciate that now. Do, please, forgive me. I’m really not experienced at this yet. Let’s just say I was wrong and put it behind us – we musn’t fall out, must we?’ And she extended her hand, evenly tanned from daily tennis, and Stephanie found herself shaking it although she felt like stabbing her fingers into the opaque grey eyes which were now cast down in suitable repentance. Fuck you, get out of my house. ‘No harm done,’ were Lauren’s final words before she marched out to her car.

  Stephanie shut her door and leaned on it, in shock. It was a moment or two before she could focus. A woman she had considered a friend had grabbed the first opportunity to call her a liar and rummage in her life for the evidence. Her family life. She felt violated. Lauren’s parting chatter echoed in the hallway like a bad smell, the slick patter of social superiority. She had distant memories of her paternal grandfather, promoted from the ranks on the eve of D-Day, rhapsodising about the officer class and their behavioural ideals, and of her father and the smokescreen of phoney gallantry behind which he bounced cheques and had affairs. These status tricks, these too she had intended to leave behind when they moved to Westwick.

  She went out into her garden – her Prozac, her opium, her safe oblivion. The first time they had left Dad, her grandmother had taken her into the garden, away from the screaming and the stuffing of suitcases. It had been raining. Tiny pools shimmered at the centre of each lupin leaf. There was a fairy ballroom at the bottom of each one, her grandmother explained, where orchestras played and dancers whirled and the daylight twinkled through the water like the sparkle of chandeliers.

  Topaz Lieberman felt she did her best work before dawn. At the business end of the kitchen, she cleared a space for her books around the computer by moving things which had invaded the desk to their proper places: the basket of clean washing on to the ironing board, a tray of seedlings to the conservatory, the telephone to its wall bracket, the cat litter sack to the utility room, the midnight blue satin bra and a pair of green snakeskin high-heeled sandals to the stair from where they might or might not progress back to the drawers and cupboard in her mother’s bedroom over the following fortnight.

  She wiped the screen with anti-static cloth, angled the keyboard as she liked it at 35 degrees to the screen, paused to throw away three mouldy nectarines in the bowl because the sight of them bugged her, powered up and began to write.

  ‘Joseph Stalin: His Path To Power.’ Click click, mark and underline. Line, line. ‘Three men fought for the leadership of the USSR in the power vacuum created by the death of Lenin on 21 January 1924. Lenin, although in his early fifties, had been a dying man since his first stroke is May 1922. In his final hours Stalin, general secretary of the Communist Party, was asserting himself as never before at the Party conference.’

  The silence was unreal. When the cat came in from the garden, the cat flap crashed in the quiet; knowing better than to disturb Topaz at her work, the animal bolted furtively upstairs to a welcoming bed. In the distance, a single car roared along The Broadway from Maple Grove. Peace, order, sterility. The parable of Switzerland and the cuckoo clock. If one of those ants stopped moving, would you really care? Topaz allowed herself a nanosecond to yearn for the tumult of Bolshevik action, for ranting and storming, the thunder of boots in corridors, the roaring of mobs in streets. She slipped the encyclopedia disc into the CD drive and scanned in a photograph of the young, lean-jawed Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (a name indicating Jewish ancestry) in a peaked cap and worn greatcoat.

  ‘Stalin’s Leadership Strategy.’ Her slender, tapering fingers rattled the keys with enthusiasm. Click, click, mark, underline. Click click, bullet points. ‘Strategic alliance against Trotsky. Line. Suppression of Lenin’s critical testament. Line. Proactive moves against Trotsky. Line. Identification with famine relief measures. Line. Popular policy objectives. Line. Trotsky isolated from military.’ The man was just awesome. The way he wasted Zinoviev, just incredible. She scanned in a contemporary cartoon of a floored Trotsky defenceless before the massed bayonets of his opponents.

  She stopped when it was light, closed the file, poured herself a long glass of milk and went into the on-line banking service. No change. On the Gaia business account the balance was just enough to cover the loan interest due in at the end of the week. On the personal account they were overdrawn already with ten days to go until the end of the month and Molly down to captain the school under-14s in the county finals on Saturday, which meant fares and snacks and entry fees. There was the tax money in the savings account, her major achievem
ent of the year, but Topaz’s spreadsheet told her that it was not enough. The Liebermensch were barely hanging on by their fingernails.

  She closed down the computer, laid the table for breakfast, pulled another load of washing out of the machine and pinned it up on the line outside. The cat had been at the trash again, rubbish was blowing over the tangle of vegetation her mother designated a physic garden. From among the stinking fronds of wormwood she pulled half a letter.

  The letter had been torn in two while still unopened in its envelope, the method of dispatch her mother used to favour for bills before Topaz had educated her. This was not a bill. This was a handwritten letter, which suggested to Topaz a person of an earlier generation, probably also of a sentimental temperament. The other half of the letter was still in the garbage, stuck to a crescent of pizza crust – Fiorentina, Mum’s usual, spinach and three cheeses, alleged to send a donation to the Florence Rescue Fund with every order. Gemma never could get the difference between low-fat and vegetarian.

  Topaz took the letter indoors, extracted the halves from the envelope and taped them back together. As she suspected, the signature was ‘Ted’and the text was the kind of pathetic mush people were reduced to when hormones were in control. Hormones mystified Topaz. Her own never disturbed her mental balance, they would not dare. Hormones had stuck her mother with three kids and no money to raise them, not really a viable life choice. Looking at other people, Topaz had concluded that hormones produced the kind of distraction which definitely blocked the path to power. Look at Clinton. And surely it was no coincidence that Stalin’s greatest years were right after Nadia Aliluieva killed herself at the age of 30.

  She put the letter in her bag and went upstairs. ‘Wake up, Flora.’ She shook her sister by the foot, pinching the boot-calloused toes. ‘Don’t forget it’s your day for ironing today. Come on, Molly, time to get up. You’re to eat your cereal this morning, don’t think you can throw it down the sink and I won’t know because I will.’