Before All Else Read online

  “Well, I never had one, did I? Perfect man comes along before any sullying or disillusionment had time to take place. I’ve been spared all that crying into my Chardonnay, group hugs with the girls and ritualistic burning of love tokens.”

  “Was there nobody in school? Must have been.”

  “Nope. Too busy with early milking to be bothered. Too knackered. Oh, but hang on…” Tilly searches the air around as if she could reach back through time. “Do you remember that letter?”

  “What letter?”

  “You know. Daddy went ballistic. Thought I’d been making eyes at the boys on the estate. Turns out it was the paper boy who fancied me and wrote this little note suggesting that he could be my boyfriend and we could go and sit on the church wall together. Except he didn’t know my name, so he said ‘the girl in the tree house’.”

  “Oh, I remember. Then he must have got fed up ’cos then he sent the same letter, this time to Amelia, ‘the girl with a scooter’. Daddy called him a randy little scrote.”

  “That’s funny. Daddy soon saw him off.” Tilly sighs, her thoughts returning to Lizzie. “It’s as if Billy’s stripped out any sense of rightfulness from her. She waits on him hand and foot. It turns my stomach to see her looking at him with such adoration in her eyes. Edmund won’t have him in the house. Which means she won’t come over. Which means I’ve got to go to the yard to see her. Can’t meet her in town or at college, because she’s always hurrying home, or for what passes for home in her altered life.

  “And she’s changed so much. She’s got love bites on her neck. She’s cut her hair off one side of her head and dyed the rest orange. She wears these rebel clothes. My beautiful little girl. Where’s she gone?”

  “She’s not gone far. She’ll be back.”

  “And she’s gone and got a tattoo.”

  “Well, she’ll look back on that one day and it’ll remind her of the time that she had to challenge all her mum’s wisdom. Had to go and find out for herself. Best get that little lesson out of the way good and early. You know, the one that says the bad boys, they are nothing more than empty calories. And, maybe…”

  “What?”

  “Maybe she’s having this little rebellion for the two of you.”

  “Eh?”

  “Well, as you said, you’ve led the perfect life. Never put a foot wrong. Whether through luck or good judgement, who knows. This really is the closest you are ever going to come to experiencing a bit of the bad stuff. At one remove, I know. In a way that causes you pain, I know. But, you’ll see, she’ll come back to you one day.”

  “Promise?”

  “Promise.”

  “Like Amelia, you mean.”

  “Yeah, well, different matter.”

  8

  Marcus – and Cecily, perchance?

  Marcus stirs under the duvet. The sun is rising earlier and earlier these days and now part-wakes him just before six am. Strange to think that this time last year he would have been hastily shaving, jamming toast in his mouth, hoping to slip out of the house to catch his bus to the station before any edicts were issued from the once-marital bedroom.

  The whole point of indolence surely is to enjoy it, to enjoy the lack of purpose, to revel in very little. He pulls the lumpy duvet up under his chin and rests the back of his head in his cradled hands, drifting back to sleep while pondering the unfinished business of his marriage.

  In a former life, the married-to-Velda life, even if it didn’t turn out to be married-to-Velda-for-life, his days had been marked out entirely by purpose. Railway timetables. Project deadlines. Shopping lists. The diurnal variations. Family events. So, now it is all rather odd having very little purpose. Odd but delicious. Delicious but a bit bewildering. Bewildering but…what is the word? The only words he can think of are Velda words, like ‘empowering’, ‘liberating’, ‘grounding’. In a funny sort of way, he does feel connected to something. Maybe, God wot, it is to the ‘Universe’, in a way that he never was when he was rushing through Waterloo on the 6.55 or driving Velda to her Chakra Dance classes. Maybe the old dear hadn’t been too far wrong with all her chanting and arm-waving and incantations. Odd way to go about things, but maybe she had a point. More to the simple, mortal man, and all that.

  Over the past few weeks, he has really come to like his little bit of the universe. Down to the deli for takeaway coffee and bread rolls for breakfast. Taking his time over the morning paper. A drive out in the afternoon. Back to the for supper and a pint and a chat with whoever is at the bar. Catch the news with a glass of whisky. Write up his notes. Off to bed.

  The sound of a delivery van reversing cuts across his thoughts. He stiffly lowers his bent arms and sniffs. A mushroom smell, which he suspects isn’t emanating from the deli below, prompts Marcus’s decision to change the bedclothes. That will be his simple purpose for the day.

  “Crumbs. Forgot!” In a flash, swifter and more fluid than he might have thought himself capable of, Marcus leaps out of bed and stands dithering on the sheepskin rug as various and self-cancelling prompts to action reveal themselves to him, like a card-sharp’s shuffle. How could he have forgotten? Today is Tuesday. Tuesday! No time for indolence or contemplation. Martha and Paul are coming today. This morning!

  He bends down, legs passing for straight, to see if he can touch his toes. Isn’t there some sort of sun salutation thing that people do when they feel themselves connected, in the right place at the right time? He grunts. If he ignores the pain in his left buttock, he could just about slide his fingers to the first joint past his knees. Maybe he isn’t totally tuned to celestial resonance just yet. Would have to work on that, but not today.

  After a hasty tidy up, he watches for them from the living room window. They did say eleven o’clock, didn’t they? He glances over to the mantelpiece clock. Maybe it was half past. Even that makes them twenty minutes late. He would send out a heartfelt bid for their safety while travelling, if he only knew which nameless, faceless, desert-wandering, pilgrim deity to address it to. Perhaps it would be less obstructionist if he goes and dries the dishes, thus releasing any blocked energy? Or is it only patient and faithful watchfulness that will ensure their safe delivery? Oh, blow it! He’ll have another cup of tea and leave others to worry about the mysteries of the universe.

  There is time for Marcus to marry up the crisped socks forming a line along the kitchen radiator and to float the desiccated roots of his Maidenhair Fern within its brown plastic pot before Paul and Martha emerge from an unfamiliar car, Paul hauling a rucksack onto his back, Martha reaching into the boot of the car to bring out multiple bags and baskets. They both stand by the car for a while, looking around. Marcus rushes down and calls from the alley entrance, “Over here.”

  “Dad,” they both shout and walk their shiny, youthful confidence over to him. He opens his arms and they take a quadrant each, squeezing him hard, making him wince slightly. “Hey, Dad, you look great.”

  “It’s me who should be checking you out. Let me take a look at you both.” Passers-by hop out of the way as the two step backwards and occupy the pavement. When did they become so tall? It isn’t just their bags and their accoutrements that make them take up so much space. They just look so abundant.

  “Sorry,” Martha apologises as a lady walking past with a white Scottie dog is forced off the pavement.

  Whereas once Marcus would have chided his children, now he is totally enamoured by Martha’s charm and ease. Even still, he can’t resist a, “Mind out.”

  “So, are you going to show us where you’re living now?”

  “Sure. Come on up.” He feels a strange little anxiety that the children won’t like his new place. Also, a strange tilting of the balance in that, living here, he is not providing a home for them. Even an empty nest is still a nest, one that could be squatted or occupied if the need arose. He has no means to put them up. They would need to l
ook to their mum to provide a home. He could only provide a crash pad. The thought makes him simultaneously a bit uneasy, as if failing in his duty as a father, but also places him, thrillingly, a little alongside their own youthful lives and experience.

  “Hey, Dad, it’s great.” Martha heaves the bags off her shoulders and onto the kitchen table. It seems she might have bought him presents. He hopes there aren’t any ghastly objets from home. Home? Paul moves straight to the sitting room and slumps on the sofa. While Martha goes round the apartment surveying and touching, Paul fiddles with the TV remote.

  “Coffee, anyone?” Marcus busies himself in the kitchen, feeling slightly crowded out.

  “Can I smoke in here?” Marcus glowers through the doorway at his son.

  “Since when did you smoke?”

  “Don’t let him, Dad. It’s vile.”

  “You can talk, Miss Goody Two Shoes.”

  “Children. Children. Stop bickering.”

  “Sorry, Dad.”

  “If you want to smoke, you can lean out of the side window. But don’t drop your ash on Mrs Owen’s pelargoniums.” Paul looks too comfortable to move and satisfies himself by reaching out an arm to accept Marcus’s offered cup of coffee. “Martha. Stop nosing and come and sit down.”

  “Righto, Dad,” she calls from somewhere out of sight.

  Marcus rips open a paper bag containing cake. He’d bought what he thought, from memory, the children would like. They both lean in hungrily, but laughingly reject his offer of a gingerbread man and a pink fancy. “You’re alright, Dad. Thanks all the same.”

  He leans back on his armchair. “So.” There seems to be so much to talk about. How have they been since he last saw them, before he moved out? How’s Mum? Do they think any less of him, upping sticks and moving to East Anglia? Has he totally wrecked everything? All these vital questions seem trapped within a smooth, weightless orb, spinning and humming in front of them. “Soooo…”

  Luckily Paul and Martha do not appear to suffer from their Dad’s reticence. Whereas he thought that they may have been sent on a mission by their mother to check him out and report back on any evidence of female occupancy, signs of distress or mismanagement, it seems that is not their intent. Rather, to report to Dad on their own activities of late. With a jolt, he remembers a dream from the night before, Martha wearing bright yellow rubber gloves and holding up a scrubbing brush in the kitchen, shouting out, “Dad, it’s infested with maggots.” He is fairly positive that no such wildlife would be found but makes an urgent note to self to check when unobserved.

  Paul describes his continuing internship at a PR firm in a smart part of London, his eyrie of a flat in a less eximious part of town, elbow fights with commuters and the price of beer. Marcus envies his youthful bravado but is nonetheless glad to be out of that particular game. The impression grows stronger with each anecdote that his son inhabits a totally different capital city to the one Marcus travelled to and from, day in and day out, for thirty-five years. Doubtless they must have glimpsed the same monuments, travelled the same Tube lines, even bought a paper from the same kiosk, yet Paul’s PR talk is at complete variance to Marcus’s experience as a quantity surveyor for a small building company. Should he admonish or admire as Paul laughingly tells them of arriving at work, late and still inebriated, after an all-night party in Clapham? Had he, Marcus, ever been to an all-night party? Ever not had a full night’s sleep? Paul’s life is out of balance, askew, crazy, but he is loving it. Marcus’s life has always been balanced – nutritionally, financially, emotionally – but ultimately, boring as buggery. He is glad that Paul is running at full pelt. Time to worry about wiser things at a later date.

  “What about you, Martha?”

  “Oh, you know, Dad. It’s going well.”

  “Still in Edinburgh?”

  “No. Didn’t I tell you, I’ve just got a great job as a buyer for a company in Cork.” Martha name-drops an interiors shop saturatingly advertised in the colour supplements. Achingly trendy and overpriced would have been his verdict, if asked. But he had learned, over the years, to hold his counsel on such matters.

  But of course Martha hadn’t told him. Nobody had told him. He had sort of assumed that the children would side with their mother and he hadn’t wanted to upset any apple cart. There was a wavy line in terms of culpability depending on whether one moved out or one was ejected. Or, put another way, whether one had finally had enough of one’s boring eejit of a husband or whether one had a right to start a new life of one’s own. So, he had just sort of slipped away, wanting to avoid upsetting the children. Although, looking at Paul outstretched and overhanging the sofa by half a mile, and Martha, sitting so self-composed, maybe it is no longer appropriate to think of them as ‘children’. And they don’t look particularly upset either.

  Brilliant that they are here and brilliant that Paul feels he can sprawl and brilliant that he does not have to nag him to get his feet off the coffee table. He can sprawl and put his feet wherever he wishes. A quiet little thought though, which he keeps to himself for fear of spoiling the atmosphere; it might have been better if the boy thought to take his shoes off first. Something unsavoury appears to be lurking between the treads. But he won’t, for the life of him, at this point in the proceedings, say anything. At all. He smiles as Paul imitates his Liverpudlian boss shouting at his intern to “Stop pecking me ’ead, will ya?”

  An electrical charge runs between the two children. He watches in paternal amusement as they verbally leapfrog each other, outdoing each other with tales of near escapes, drunken mishaps, unreliable landlords and skanky girlfriends/boyfriends. Absentmindedly, they reach out for the previously rejected cake and talk through half-chewed crumbs. He could not love them more.

  After a period, they seem to have worn each other out. A conversational lull ensues. He wonders if now the true purpose of their visit will manifest itself. He waits in readiness for the pointed questions like, “So, Dad, any regrets?” “Can you still get down on bended knee?” “Too proud to beg?” But it seems that the hiatus only reminds them how hungry they are and how near lunchtime it is getting.

  “I wonder what you fancy doing. Do you want to drive out a bit? There’s a great pub in Clarendon. Could show you a few of the local sights. Or we could go across the road to the Red.” What is one supposed to do? Velda usually managed the itinerary on their visits home. Last time he had been truly in charge of their programme of activities it had been driving them from football training to skateboarding, from horse riding to gymnastics. Now they are autonomous, adult, and the thought scares him. He has no automatic right now to any love or respect or obedience. It all has to be earned, all over again. He is on his own. They seem happy enough to let him decide. Maybe they too feel a bit displaced. What does it matter? They are here now and they look like they are intent on enjoying themselves. It doesn’t look as if they are about to run off or sulk or slam any doors.

  The decision being his, he decides on a quick round trip of the nearest villages, stopping at the Ox Tail for some of their excellent beer and sandwiches. “Come on then. Let’s go.”

  In the warmth of a beautiful May morning, they obligingly peer down wells, gaze up at wrought-iron village signs, listen to his discourse on round church towers versus square ones and profess an interest in Saxon shore forts. He takes them to one. A solitary wall rises from an embankment overlooking the tidal river. Its grey mass pushes down into the grass with the weight of an almost mythical tyranny. The Roman terracotta tiles layered between bands of cut and mortared flint are a persistent echo of the warm Umbrian sun failing to warm the chill of this hard, grey, sea-bound place.

  In many ways, the children haven’t changed so very much. Paul could never sit in the passenger seat of any car without fiddling with all the dials and controls within reach. Marcus grits his back teeth as Paul moves the radio dial from classical to country, from current affairs t
o pop. “What you looking for, son, exactly?” Marcus cannot prevent himself from asking, as Paul empties out the glove compartment.

  “Don’t know. Just looking. Got any travel sweets?”

  “No.” A tiny irksome question frets at Marcus’s brain, whether Paul would allow him to rifle through the glove compartment of his car, or whether that would be considered a paternal snoop too far? Why is it that some privileges only go one way?

  Marcus glances at Martha in the rearview mirror. As she gazes through the slightly open window at the flashing countryside, her dark blonde hair blows in ribbons across her face. She is oblivious to this in her contemplation of the features of the landscape, her eyes tracking right to left as a water tower approaches and flashes past. His heart nearly stops for love of her.

  He mulls over their earlier conversation. Paul now in London, Martha in Cork. That is it. They are all going through changes. Life doesn’t stand still. At twenty-three or at sixty-three. Perhaps they have more in common than just the traditional bonds of fatherhood and childhood.

  But beneath this metaphysical revelation, two questions continue to gnaw inside his mind or ‘peck his ’ead’, as Paul described it. When are they going home? And how indeed is Velda? Could any ganging up be construed in the three of them being together? But then, he realises, that makes three questions and with the fabulous fifteenth-century Ox Tail less than two miles away, the matter of whether to sample the mild or the pale ale first becomes a far more pressing matter.

  After a three-course lunch made all the more succulent by the children’s evident enjoyment, they are on their way home again, Paul mercifully quietened by some activity on his phone and Martha fast asleep in the back of the car.

  Between concentrating on the sharp bends and the sunken ditches, his mind moves ahead to the meeting tonight. Both Madge and Mr Edge had asked if he was going. If he is honest with himself, he had thought that being a relative newcomer gave him immunity to the travails of his chosen resting place. So he had not heeded the call to all to attend the village fair action meeting. But it seems that others had different ideas. “Fresh blood. Fresh ideas.” “More the merrier.”