Astonishing Splashes of Colour Read online

  “Flying,” mutters Rosie in a very tired voice.

  Lesley tries to pick them both up at once and kisses them repeatedly. I have never seen her so demonstrative before. She looks oddly unwell.

  “Did your parents’ night finish early?” I ask, not at all sure of the time.

  She looks at me and her face seems to close up. “I came home early. I had a headache,” she says in a curiously cold voice.

  “Oh,” I say.

  We stand looking at each other and I know I’m in trouble. In the half-light she apparently sees me better than I can see her. I’m frozen in the glaring spotlight of her disapproval.

  “Why don’t we run you home?” says the policeman. “Then you can sort it out tomorrow.”

  “Thank you,” I say and climb into the car. I can see Lesley taking the girls into their pink house. A neat little house with a place for everyone, where they live and grow together, where they know they belong. The front door closes. I sit in the back on my own, feeling as if I’m about to cry, and look for a tissue in my bag. There are three tickets next to the tissues. Train tickets to Edinburgh—one adult and two children. I don’t really know why they’re there.

  JAKE’S PORCH IS BIG. Indoor plants grow dark-green and rich in the heat of the sun through the windows and with water from Suzy’s loving hand, but they never look hysterical or out of control. Suzy has style. The plants know exactly how big they’re allowed to grow, how wide their glossy leaves can become. There is room for two white wicker chairs with bright, tapestry cushions. It is more a conservatory than a porch, where Suzy and Jake could sit and watch the passing traffic. But I’m sure they don’t. The chairs are like the plants, part of a design, a testimony to Suzy’s good taste.

  I’m surprised to find that the outside door is open. I step in. I’m tempted to move the chairs together to make a bed, and my whole body aches at the thought of lying down. But I’d prefer not to meet the postman or the milkman at six o’clock in the morning. I couldn’t bear the thought of being watched while I’m asleep.

  I knock gently and step back from the door to see if there are any lights on inside. It’s not easy to tell because the windows have heavy metal shutters. Suzy, the bank manager, knows about security.

  There’s a light on inside, but I suspect it’s a nightlight, intended as a deterrent to burglars, not a welcome for me.

  It’s after midnight, but you can’t tell with Jake. He could be fast asleep—tucked up by a mothering Suzy—or he could be sitting up all night with the television, nursing his insomnia. Paul reckons that this is the result of a guilty conscience, but he hasn’t yet produced a good reason for the guilt.

  I step to the side of the porch, out of reach of their security light. The night is never black in Birmingham, so just beyond light is the darkest place to be and the most comforting.

  I am cold, chilled from inside. I go back, lift the knocker and tap very gently. He won’t hear it if he’s asleep, but he might if he is lying awake—unless he’s watching a horror film. Panic bubbles up inside me and I struggle to stop myself crying. I’m afraid. I don’t know what to do. I need sanctuary. I wish Jake would just appear.

  I listen intently to the silence that is not really silent at all. I can hear my heart beating, a rustle in the hedge, a car in the distance—and another noise, a shuffle from inside the house. I hold my breath and hope it isn’t Suzy.

  Someone is on the other side of the door. I hear a light switch, a footstep and then nothing.

  “Who is it?”

  I start to shake with relief. “Jake? It’s me—Kitty.” My teeth are chattering. I don’t know if he can hear me. I can hardly hear myself.

  He pulls back the bolts, the mortise lock and finally the Yale lock. The door eases open and I see Jake’s tangled hair, his waxy face, his eyes dark and not well.

  “Can I come in? I won’t make any noise.” Please, Jake, let me in.

  The door opens wider and I step through. Jake shuts it behind me and rolls the locks back. Then he turns. I can only see the paleness of his face in the dark.

  “Go in the living room,” he whispers. I tiptoe in, wondering if he will follow me, or just go back to bed.

  The door closes, then there is a click and the light comes on. I stand blinking, unable to see anything in the sudden brightness.

  “What are you doing here, Kitty?”

  I try to focus my eyes. Jake is wearing a pale pink chenille dressing gown. “Why are you wearing Suzy’s dressing gown?”

  He doesn’t bother to look. I worry about how silly he will feel when he realizes he is decorated with pink roses. First floor, Ladies’ Separates and Lingerie at Marks & Spencer.

  He sighs and bends to light the gas fire. “They’re after you,” he says. “Adrian phoned earlier to see if you were here.” He sits heavily on the sofa by the fire, looking cold.

  I move a chair closer to the fire and curl myself up on it. I can’t stop my teeth chattering.

  “I know,” I say, feeling more miserable than I did before. “Why do you think I came here?”

  He smiles at me, and I feel easier. Jake’s great strength is that he’s good in a crisis. He can rise above the temperatures and tonsillitis and infected ingrowing toenails and become wise and serious and supportive.

  “Did I wake you?”

  “No, I wasn’t asleep.”

  I silently bless his insomnia. “I didn’t know where to go.”

  “Home to face the music, I should think.”

  I smile feebly and watch the flames of the fire. They are a clever invention, these pretend-coal fires. You have to study them for a long time before you realize that the flames are not random, but follow a meticulously organized pattern. And even then, you can’t be absolutely sure.

  I haven’t talked to James for several days.

  Jake stops smiling. “Kitty, what were you thinking of, taking the girls out without telling anyone? I assume they’re at home now?”

  I can’t look him in the eye. I study the carpet instead. It’s a neutral beige, calm and spotless, made from natural fibres so that it won’t aggravate Jake’s allergies. Much too hard-wearing for Jake and Suzy who live in a bubble of cleanness and never spill anything. “We forgot Rosie’s coat. It would have been all right if we hadn’t had to go back.”

  “You can’t just go off with children like that. They’re too young.”

  What does he know about children and the age they do things?

  “Where did you take them?” The tone of his voice is casual, but the loudness gives away his eagerness to know.

  “Peter Pan.”

  He nods knowledgeably, either trying to tell me that he knows Peter Pan, or that he considers it to be a wise choice.

  There is a plate of Quality Street on the coffee table. Suzy always leaves eatable temptations around. I think she likes to show everyone that she can exercise restraint, that she doesn’t eat nice things whenever she sees them. I take a toffee and unwrap it. As I chew, I want to throw the paper into the fire, but remember at the last minute that it isn’t a real fire. I screw it up in my hand, then open it out carefully on my knees, smoothing out the creases, folding it perfectly and folding it again.

  “Did I wake Suzy?” I ask eventually.

  Jake sighs. “No, I don’t think so. She’s had a tummy upset during the day, but she’s a lot better now, thank goodness.”

  “Was she sick?”

  “Yes, very.”

  We sit in silence. I don’t really want to talk to Jake. I came here because I needed somewhere to go, and I didn’t want to stay out all night again. There’s a deep coldness inside my stomach which is spreading upwards and outwards. The heat of the fire can’t reach me.

  The train tickets flash into my mind: little white cards, neatly printed, sitting in my bag next to the purse.

  Where did they come from?

  Did I put them there?

  Why?

  “Is there anything on the telly?”

/>   “Does James know what’s going on?”

  I shake my head. “Well, I suppose he does now. No doubt Adrian will have phoned.”

  He nods and takes a coffee cream.

  “It’s a good thing somebody likes coffee creams,” I say.

  “I don’t like them. I just eat them because nobody else wants them.”

  We munch together and the pile of Quality Street diminishes. Suzy will know I’ve been here when she gets up tomorrow because I always sit down and eat the lot. I hope she feels too ill to notice.

  “Anyway,” I say, “Adrian isn’t even in Birmingham. He went to London.”

  Jake coughs. I can hear the phlegm in his chest. “No. He came home—he had to walk out of a major awards ceremony.”

  “Whatever for?”

  “Lesley phoned him on his mobile. She thought the children had been abducted. People think like that, you know, if their children aren’t where they should be.”

  “They weren’t in any danger,” I say.

  “But how would Adrian know? The three of you could have been murdered.”

  “I wrote a note,” I say and stop. “Actually, I think I might have forgotten.” My eyes shift away from his gaze. I’m not very good at lying.

  “Quite.”

  “Lesley wasn’t supposed to come home so early. I was going to tell her all about it once the children were safely in bed.”

  He picks out all the coffee creams and lines them up on the arm of the sofa. He starts eating them one by one, folding the papers neatly and throwing them into the wastepaper bin. Not one of them misses.

  I snatch a handful of sweets irritably. I can’t bear to watch his neatness, his precision. I start to stuff the sweets in my mouth, not waiting to finish one before starting the next.

  “You’ll have to face them tomorrow,” he says mildly. “You can’t hide for ever.”

  I shrug. “Don’t worry. I’ll be gone before you get up.”

  We have nothing to say to each other. I know he won’t push me too far. Like, “Is it to do with the baby?” He won’t be able to ask me that, because he knows I can’t answer.

  “I’ll get to bed, then,” he says. He stands up in his pink dressing gown and coughs again. It doesn’t sound good. “Help yourself if you want to make a drink. Only—”

  “Yes?”

  “Try to be quiet. Suzy needs a good sleep.”

  “By the way,” I say, “the porch door is unlocked.”

  He stops at the door, about to say something, but changes his mind. I pick up the remote control and put on BBC2. It’s the Open University. They’re having a discussion on cloning.

  “Sleep well,” I say. “You can count babies to help you nod off.”

  He’s gone. I only said that because I knew he wouldn’t hear it.

  I listen to an earnest woman with glasses on a chain round her neck, and a younger man wearing a white coat with a pager in the pocket. Scientist or doctor? I wonder. They talk with great conviction, but they don’t agree. I’m beginning to warm up. My eyes are suddenly heavy and aching. I huddle down into the chair, lean my head on the cushion and try to concentrate on cloning.

  I wake with a jerk, and my neck cracks with the movement. The telly is still on, but I can’t work out what they’re talking about. The faces are blurred, the words incomprehensible.

  I was dreaming about babies all over the place—in beds, on chairs, in prams. There is nowhere to sit because everywhere is full of babies. They are gurgling, sleeping, screaming. In the second before I wake, I realize that I am one of them, and open my mouth to scream, to prove it. I wake up at that precise moment, feeling stiff and ill.

  I look at my watch. It’s 5:30. Time to go home, before anyone guesses where I am.

  A group of suited men on the television are talking in a foreign language. I leaf rapidly through the Radio Times, wanting to know what it is. Russian. No wonder I can’t understand them.

  I turn off the television and get up. My legs are very stiff and I nearly fall over, my right foot tingling with pins and needles. I jump up and down on it until it starts to work again.

  When I turn the light off, I can still see—it’s no longer dark outside. Going into the hall, I move very carefully so that I don’t wake anyone, but just before I open the front door I hear a movement behind me. I turn round, expecting Jake, and find myself confronting Suzy.

  “Oh,” I say in alarm and put my hand over my mouth.

  She looks strangely unfocused. “Kitty,” she says. “What are you doing here?”

  “Well,” I say, and I haven’t a thought in my head. “I was just passing …”

  She stares, but her intense concentration is not directed at me, but on some internal dilemma. I’ve never seen her before in nightclothes, her face pale without makeup, her hair greasy and ragged.

  “Oh—” she groans suddenly and races away into the kitchen.

  As I unlock the front door, I can hear her retching into the sink. I shut the door behind me, trying not to hear her being sick. I know about this—being sick all day. She doesn’t have a tummy upset, she’s pregnant. I recognize the look.

  My legs are heavy, as if I’m trying to run in water, and it feels as if they’re not moving at all. I’m not sure I can manage to get home.

  IHESITATE OUTSIDE MY flat door, uncertain where to go. Home or to James? Where would Adrian expect to find me? My flat? I wouldn’t let him in and he wouldn’t have a key. He might go to James and ask him to let him in. Would James do it? I’m not sure. Hovering agonizingly, I consider going to visit Miss Newman on the floor below. She’ll invite me in for cake and tea. This is unrealistic. It’s too early for cake.

  I move from one door to the other, incapable of making a decision.

  The decision is made for me as James’s door opens and Adrian comes out.

  “Ah, there you are, Kitty,” he says, as if it is normal for him to be coming out of James’s flat at 6:30 in the morning.

  “Yes,” I say and look at my feet. My shoes are covered in mud.

  “We need a talk,” he says, and he sounds like an all-knowing headmaster, a benevolent father, a big brother.

  James comes out behind him. They’re both fully dressed, but crumpled.

  “Kitty!” he says, coming towards me. He sounds pleased to see me, but I’m probably misreading him. He comes over and puts an arm round me. “Kitty,” he says again, and I lean against him. He is pleasingly warm and soft. “Thank goodness you’re all right.”

  I feel not very all right at all. My legs are stiff, my neck hurts, I have a tummy ache and I can’t remember where I left my bag with my purse and key in it. This strikes me as hilarious, because I wouldn’t have been able to get into my house anyway. I fight back a wave of giggles that threatens to ripple through me. I can imagine Adrian’s response to that. “Laughter is not appropriate.”

  Adrian leads the way and they guide me into James’s flat. I want to say, “I can walk, you know,” but what I actually say is, “Suzy’s pregnant.”

  There’s a smell of burning toast, and James dashes out, leaving me alone with Adrian. This is unfair. James is married to me and I’m partly his responsibility—even if he’d prefer not to be involved. I’m more important than toast.

  Adrian paces up and down, putting his hands in his pockets and taking them out again. There’s a dark stubble on his face and his brown eyes seem more hollow than usual. I have never seen him genuinely agitated before, and watching him makes me breathe too fast. My head starts to swim and I wish he would stop.

  “I really think, Kitty …” he says and slows down.

  His shoes are hard and noisy on the wooden floor. I worry about Miss Newman downstairs. She will be woken up with all the noise. If I wait until Adrian goes, I could slip down and see her. She might be ready for tea and cakes by then.

  He tries again. “Why didn’t you say something? It seems so— so—”

  James comes back into the room. “Go home,” he says to A
drian. “We all need some sleep. I’ll ring this evening.”

  Amazingly, Adrian turns and goes out of the door. He rarely takes James seriously, so I wait for him to change his mind and come back to finish his argument. But the front door closes behind him.

  I sit on the sofa and wait. Everything around me is unnaturally bright and hard-edged. Then James is in my line of vision. He has done it again, walked across his floor without a sound. I look up at his face, waiting for the questions, but none comes. He sits down beside me, but doesn’t touch me.

  Does he know about the train tickets? I start to sweat. Has he found out? Did I tell him?

  “Come to bed,” he says gently. “We’ll talk later.”

  Obediently, I get up and follow him into the bedroom. We undress and climb in under the double duvet. We lie side by side, neither of us moving. After a while, his body grows warm and heavy and his breathing becomes even. Poor James. He must be exhausted after his sleepless night. I move closer to catch his warmth.

  But every time I close my eyes, a tangle of colours races across my mind. Butterflies dancing in the wind, crocodiles, dark green glossy plants, cloned Peter Pans talking Russian, Suzy carrying five babies together, all laughing and being sick down her smart pink suit.

  I jerk my eyes open. I don’t want to sleep. It’s too exhausting. I can’t think about the last twenty-four hours, so I think about my mother instead.

  She died when I was three, so if she miraculously appeared now, resurrected, I wouldn’t recognize her. When I dream of her, she’s real. I see her long dark hair and the necklaces of beads that I played with as a baby. I don’t know how much is memory and how much imagination. The dream is not a nightmare, it has only comfort in it, but I lose it too fast when I wake, and I lie alone with a terrible pain inside me, a hole that will never be filled. I can’t decide which is worse, to not have a mother, or to not have children. An empty space in both directions. No backwards, no forwards.

  She died in a car crash, but nobody will tell me anything about it. Whenever I ask, an enormous vagueness descends. I would like more detail. Whose fault was it? Was she driving? Was there anyone else in the car? I need an end before I can go back to the beginning.