Astonishing Splashes of Colour Read online

  “Jenny has come to visit Marjorie for a few days,” says Alison breezily. Marjorie lives next door to them and she’s a close friend.

  James pauses in his eating.

  “Jenny used to be at school with James,” says Alison to me.

  “Yes,” I say. “You’ve mentioned them before.”

  “She brought the grandchildren, Katie and Ben. Such sweet children—Katie’s only nine months, of course, but crawling, and her eyes are so big and round, as if she knows everything.”

  Why do they do this? It’s as if they want to make believe it never happened. As if they can persuade me to do it all again, but win this time round. Maybe I should mention it, remind them of the reality: “By the way, I lost the baby and I can’t have any more”—just in case they’ve really forgotten.

  “More wine?” says James, leaping up.

  Alison and Jeremy give off this glow of respectability. Professional, affluent, middle-class people, wanting grandchildren, so they can start putting money aside for their education. Perhaps they’re thinking about surrogate mothers, perhaps they want to donate money to the cause. I used to think they put on this air of respectability to impress everyone, but I realize now they’re really like that. Everything they show us is genuine. They never lighten or darken. They are like a smooth, beige carpet, completely neutral, calm and secure beneath our feet, able to blend easily with anyone round them, offering co-ordination, not contrast. I see beige as a non-colour.

  “Have you tried jogging yet?” Jeremy asks James. He’s concerned about our lack of exercise.

  “No,” says James.

  Jeremy jogs for an hour every morning from seven till eight, trotting round his village three times, jumping up and down on the spot while he waits for the pelican crossing. He has to do it, he says, because he sees so many clogged up arteries on his operating table, he knows the dangers.

  “James finds it difficult to jog because of his leg,” I say.

  They both look at me. “He can run on it,” says Alison. “He always took part in school sports days.”

  I know about James’s torture on the school’s cross country runs. He was always last, except the day when he cheated with three other boys and hailed a taxi. They were dropped two hundred yards from the school gates, but the others told James to wait twenty minutes before going in, because he would give the game away. He waited, but still arrived in the first ten. The sportsmaster refused to believe he’d run all the way in the time. He didn’t exactly accuse him of cheating, but James didn’t get a certificate and was told to put the episode behind him.

  “We’re off to Australia next week,” says Alison. “The Great Barrier Reef.”

  They dive. They rise every morning at 6:45, never eat anything with sugar in it and take three holidays a year, which they use to go diving.

  “You must think we all have very boring lives next to yours,” I say.

  “Of course not,” says Jeremy. “You’ve just been to New York. We’ve only ever been there for conferences.”

  “Well—actually—” I say.

  James interrupts. “I thought you went to the Great Barrier Reef last year.”

  “Yes,” says Alison. “It was so wonderful we thought we’d go for longer. You really should come with us. You’d love it, both of you.”

  How can she be so sure that we’d love it when she doesn’t really know us at all? I look at their lightly tanned faces and their trim, fit bodies and I don’t envy them. They live for their work, their flexibility, their success, but somewhere along the way they seem to have missed the point. They only had one son, and he was physically flawed. Better than me, I think angrily. I couldn’t produce one live child, not even an imperfect one.

  They always look the same, amiably satisfied, interested, well-intentioned. I think they genuinely care about James and me. I don’t think they would favour an early divorce so that James could try again with another potential mother. But they’re like shadows. There’s not enough colour in their world.

  I look at James and I am proud of his uniqueness, his refusal to conform. No more operations on his leg, no compromise on his choice of career. He’s got colour below the surface. He’s inherited genes that they didn’t know they possessed, and he refuses to bleach out. I love him for this.

  “What’s for pudding?” I ask James.

  He looks up and catches my eye, realizing that I’m annoyed. “Treacle tart.” He knows I like puddings. He made it for me.

  “None for me,” says Alison.

  “A cup of black coffee for us,” says Jeremy.

  They know we know they don’t eat puddings, but they’re always scrupulously polite.

  I know I’m being unfair about them. They can’t help their ordinariness. They were born with it. When they first went out together, they each must have seen the other’s sameness rolling towards them, meeting and merging, until it was impossible to tell where they joined.

  Perhaps they know this. Maybe that’s why they go diving—so that they can visit a great underwater world that is saturated with colour. Then they come back on to dry land and can’t recreate it. They can’t take it away with them and that’s why they keep going back. To see a world they can’t contain.

  They are good people who save lives all the time. James and I are nothing next to them, with our failed trip to New York and our treacle tart. They probably know the latest advance in artificial wombs. It’s only a matter of time, they’d say.

  James wants me to stay after his parents leave, but I don’t want to. I kiss his right ear lobe and leave him happily washing up, pleased that we have impressed his parents with our efficiency.

  I take Adrian’s book and slip back to my own flat. I want to read this one as soon as possible: I want to know if my mother is in it.

  I put the light on, draw the curtains and relax on my sofa with the book. I am still reading when the sun rises and the postman drops the daily brown envelopes through my door.

  I forget about eating. I forget about everything. The telephone rings and people leave messages which I don’t listen to. At eleven thirty in the morning I read the last page. I get up from the sofa and find that my legs have forgotten how to walk. I wander unsteadily into the kitchen and drink three glasses of water. I go back to the living room and dial Adrian’s number.

  “Adrian Wellington.”

  “Adrian? It’s Kitty.”

  “Hello, Kitty.” He sounds cautious.

  “It’s all right. I’m not asking you to let me have the children.”

  “Oh.” He pretends not to sound relieved. “Have you started my book yet?”

  “Yes, and I’ve finished it.”

  “And?”

  “Why aren’t I in the book, Adrian? Don’t I exist?”

  5

  outer circle

  I want to be angry, but before the hot rush of indignation sweeps through me, I want to cry. Then I think it is ridiculous to be upset and I’d rather be angry instead, so I let the rage take over, raise my temperature, heighten my blood pressure, sharpen my mind.

  The book is good. He knows how to describe people, how to give them an inner life. He has used his family as a starting point and I know that much of it is made up. But not all.

  There are four boys and a girl in the book—Andrew, John, Michael, Peter and Daphne—and they are, of course, Adrian, Jake, Martin, Paul and Dinah. This is so obvious that it would be impossible for Adrian to argue otherwise. My father roars through the pages as he does through life. There’s no need for embellishment. He’s theatrical enough in the first place. But where am I? I know the book isn’t autobiographical, I know it’s fiction, but it was unfair of him to leave me out.

  “It’s only a novel, Kitty. It’s not meant to be real.”

  “But you managed to include everyone else.”

  “You weren’t there when I was growing up.”

  “Yes, I was. I remember your hair down to your shoulders and the flared trousers.”
r />   “I didn’t wear flared trousers.”

  “Yes you did. I remember them.”

  I can hear him getting annoyed. “I never wore flared trousers.”

  “You did. You’ve just forgotten.”

  “Anyway, if you can remember that, it was past the time of my book. I’m writing about the childhood of a boy in a big family. I didn’t grow my hair until I was about eighteen.”

  “You were only fourteen when I was born.”

  I can hear him sigh. He’s trying not to be annoyed and his voice drops in pitch as he makes the effort. “I didn’t include you, Kitty, because I thought it would confuse things.” He’s like a car engine. If he becomes slightly overheated, the thermostat cuts in and he falls back down a few degrees. Not just with his voice. He can do it with his mood. He analyses his anger, decides if it is too heated and regulates himself.

  “So I just confuse everything.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “But you meant it.”

  “Kitty, it’s just a novel. It’s a made-up story.”

  “Dinah’s in it.”

  “She was there when I was growing up. She was my older sister. She affected everything I did.”

  “But it’s only a novel. You could have left her out altogether.”

  He stops. I can hear him breathing carefully. I try to work out how upset I am. I feel hot and uncomfortable. My stomach is rolling around, almost as if I am afraid, but I’m not quite sure why. The conversation is civilized. My feelings are not.

  I can hear his breathing calm down and I try to do the same with mine. Long slow breaths; in, two, three, four, five; out, two, three, four, five. Relax the neck muscles, the shoulders, the fingers. Unclench the teeth—

  “Apart from your absence, Kitty, what did you think of the book?”

  “Was Mother really like that?” She comes over as a shadowy background person. Someone who put meals on the table, washed up, knitted jumpers, sewed buttons back on shirts. I’m sure she was more than this. Adrian should have acknowledged her nearly-degree, her love for life.

  “Well, the book wasn’t about the mother. It was about a boy called Andrew—”

  “Who is you.”

  “No, not exactly.”

  “You can’t write a story about a boy growing up without including his mother. The mother is the most important person in his life.” I stop and think of Henry. I would have been the most important person in his life. Forever. When he finally died at ninety after a long, happy and fulfilled life, his last thought would have been about his mother. He would have remembered me. “Mothers and sons have a special relationship.”

  “I know that, but I thought she would come over best by just being there. Most children don’t analyse the significance of their mothers. They simply accept their existence. So the impact of her death would have seemed especially harsh—from always being there to not being there.”

  “But she didn’t die by falling out of an aeroplane.”

  “No, I made that up. I am writing a novel, not telling my life story.”

  “Do you remember how she died? Were you there with her? Was anyone in the car?”

  “Who are we talking about now?”

  “Who do you think?”

  “No, there was no one with her.”

  “How did you hear about it? What were you doing at the time?”

  “Kitty, I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Did you go with Dad to identify the body?”

  “No, Kitty. Stop it.”

  I stop. I’m being unfair on him, but I’m angry. We wait in silence for a while.

  “Kitty,” he says at last. “Are you still there?”

  “Yes,” I say. “No. Remember your book. I wasn’t there in the first place.” I can feel tears brimming over my eyes, dripping down my face, plopping as they fall onto the telephone.

  “Are you taking your pills?” he says gently.

  “That’s none of your business,” I say and put the phone down.

  I sit for a long time without moving. The phone rings several times, but I don’t answer it. I sit and watch the light fade for a second time. The darkness creeps in and settles over me. I sit alone and in the dark all night. Eventually, the phone stops ringing. I imagine Adrian going to bed and apologizing to himself for deserting me. “It’ll be all right in the morning,” he’ll say to himself—or to Lesley if she’s awake and interested.

  But it won’t be all right in the morning. I’ll be as silent then as I am now. I have no past. No mother, no significance in my brothers’ lives and no baby memories, because they have all been destroyed by my father. No future. No children to depend on me, take a little bit of me, to remember me.

  I go out when the sun begins to rise. I don’t want anyone to come and find me, because I’m afraid they might not see me. I’m afraid that I don’t really exist at all.

  I walk a long way, right into the centre of the city and out again on the other side into an area where I’ve never been before. There are a few people around, even at this hour, but I look at the ground and pretend not to see them. I have too much silence in me to smile or say “Good morning.” They are people going to work. Postmen, milkmen, shift workers waiting for the bus to take them to Longbridge, Cadbury’s, all-night Sainsburys. They seem so purposeful. They know they exist, they know where they are going.

  I walk fast. I want to look as if I know where I’m going, as if I have a purpose like everyone else.

  Then I stop. I look around me, and I have no idea where I am. What am I doing here? I’ve never seen this road before: this pavement, these houses. I stop so abruptly that a woman with a pushchair bumps into me.

  “Sorry,” she mutters breathlessly. She has a toddler in the pushchair, and two other children, one on each side, holding on to the handles. I can feel her irritation. The child in the pushchair is wailing constantly, not very loudly, on a jarring pitch that sets my teeth on edge. The two older children have red noses and puffy eyes. She’s allowed to have three children but she doesn’t even look after them properly.

  “It was my fault,” I say, pretending to smile, but not meeting her eye.

  The boy sneezes and sniffs very loudly.

  I move aside and let them pass. I walk behind them, but slowly at first, so that I can disappear into the background if they notice me. They must be going to school, I think, and with a jolt, I realize that I’ve lost hours of time. Why am I here? The pavements are crowded with people, the roads full of cars and lorries and bicycles. Everyone seems to be going somewhere except me.

  The mother and the pushchair are moving rapidly out of sight, and I walk faster so that I can watch them going to school. I would like to see the mothers outside the school, watching the children go in, waving at them while they stand and talk. A sharp stab of nostalgia for my yellow time pierces me and I start to run in my anxiety to reach the school gates.

  The children on each side of the pushchair are carrying lunchboxes. The girl’s is pink with a cartoon image of Pocahontas, while the boy has the Lion King. They don’t want to walk as fast as their mother. The boy has thick ginger hair that sweeps disobediently over his head and ends in soft curls just above his ears, which stick out rather more than most children’s. I worry about him being bullied because of those ears. He walks with his head down, holding on to the pushchair, expecting his mother to guide him round obstacles.

  The girl is older and her hair is fairer, tied up in a ponytail with a big fluorescent green clip. You can buy enough hair clips nowadays to have a different one every day for a year. Sometimes, I go and buy them, collecting them for the daughter I will never have. It seems that if you have children and a bit of money, the world opens up like a huge Aladdin’s cave, beckoning in the children, offering them wonders, excitement, food, clothes, videos, toys. The world is made for children, and without them you’re no one.

  The girl’s fair-yellow-ponytail is swinging, and she’s arguing with her mother. I walk
faster, because I want to hear what she’s saying.

  “Mum—why can’t I?”

  The mother seems breathless, whining like the girl. “No, Emma. I’ve told you once and I’m not telling you again. It’s too late.”

  “I won’t come home on my own. Sarah will walk back with me.”

  “And who’ll walk back home with Sarah?”

  Emma pauses to catch her breath. “You could.”

  “If I could take Sarah back, I could come and fetch you in the first place.”

  “Why don’t you, then?”

  “Who’s going to look after Darren?”

  “It’s not fair—everyone else is going.”

  “Mum,” says the boy suddenly.

  The mother ignores him.

  “Mum—” his voice holds the word for longer, letting it drift, setting up a painful discord with the wail from the child in the pushchair.

  “What?”

  “My foot hurts.”

  “So?”

  I don’t like the mother. She doesn’t seem to care at all about the children. I fall back, feeling Emma’s distress at not being allowed to go with her friends, feeling the boy’s pain in his foot.

  The mother stops unexpectedly, leans over and smacks the child in the pushchair. A shriek of fury rises up in the air. The mother starts to walk again, dragging the boy along. “How many times have I told you?” she shouts at the pushchair. “Don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve.”

  But has he got a handkerchief? I think. Does he have an alternative?

  I stop trying to keep up with them. I can’t bear to watch.

  We’re approaching the school gates and I can see the mothers and children outside, a haze of yellow above them—the morning, the sun, the blond heads of hair …

  They are moving so fast that the boy trips and falls over. “Mum!” he screams.