Eight

Meg sat at the kitchen table, cupping a mug of coffee that had long since gone cold in her hand for several minutes before she realized she was watching Gripper enthusiastically eviscerating James’s favorite Teddy. The stuffed bear was well and truly gutted, and for the first time in her life Meg thought she knew what it was like to feel that way, too.

It was something that Robert had said to her last night, or did it count as this morning? she wondered. Technically it was this morning, Meg decided, because he had come in from work well past midnight.

Meg had waited up for him. She didn’t usually, but yesterday morning she had seen a woman on This Morning, a relationship counselor or divorce lawyer or something, declaring that modern women don’t care enough for their men. That in these days of “so-called equality” women expect men to work, bring home the money, do their equal share of the cleaning and cooking, while women are too busy with their own lives to offer the nurturing support that men need. No wonder, the woman said, that husbands got fed up with their battleax wives and had affairs with women who were more likely to offer them the attention they needed.

Meg had switched off the TV with a huff, mumbling something about it being utter nonsense. But later, as she contemplated whether or not it was worth washing the kitchen floor, she found herself wondering if there wasn’t some sense to what the woman said.

After all, Robert worked so hard that they barely spent ten minutes a day together. And as for any intimacy, well, when she thought about it, she realized that that side of things had dwindled almost entirely away. In fact, she was fairly sure she hadn’t had sex with her husband since she found out that she was pregnant with Iris. She was so used to his always making the first move in the bedroom that she hadn’t noticed that he had stopped…making moves. It was because they were both so tired, she told herself, and busy. A new baby is exhausting, and Robert was probably being considerate. But still, the woman on TV was right about one thing, it was important to keep that intimate connection going within a couple.

So she decided to wait up for him that night. During the day she took James and Iris to the supermarket, where she bought the kind of food she thought Robert might like to eat when he came home late at night: some nice bread, good cheese and hams, and an expensive bottle of red wine.

She thought she had done pretty well staying awake for so long after she had finally marshaled all the children into bed, including Iris, who miraculously still seemed to be asleep as the closing credits of News at Ten rolled. But she must have dozed off at some point in front of a late-night horror film, because the next thing she remembered was Robert shaking her by the shoulder and delivering a screaming Iris into her arms.

“You were snoring,” he said, a little distastefully, Meg thought. “And she was screaming her head off. You should have brought the monitor down. It’s a miracle they’re not all up.”

“Oh,” Meg said, pulling herself up in her chair and blinking. She stood up with Iris still crying in her arms and followed him to the kitchen. She wanted to show him what she had done.

“You should feed her,” Robert said, his back to her as he peered in the fridge.

“I thought I’d wait up for you,” she said, putting the palm of her hand on his shoulder. He smelt faintly of pubs, a waft of stale smoke and a tinge of beer rising from his suit. “I got you some food,” she said, picking up his hand and drawing him toward the table where she had laid out the feast. “And some wine. I hope it’s all right.”

Robert blinked at the table for a moment and then at Meg, who was jiggling a squalling Iris on her shoulder.

“For God’s sake just feed her, please,” he said as he sat down heavily. “I’m shattered, I just need some peace and quiet.”

Meg sat opposite him, unbuttoned the top of her nightie, and put Iris to her breast. She watched Robert as he poured himself a glass of the wine and then buttered some bread. He seemed pleased with the food at least.

“I was thinking,” Meg ventured, “it’s ages since we’ve just had some time together on our own.” She looked down at Iris. “Well, almost on our own. And so I thought it might be nice if I waited up for you.” She paused, not exactly sure how to say what she wanted to say. “So that we could go to bed…together for once.”

“Actually, I’m really tired,” Robert said, dropping the knife onto the plate with a clatter and pushing the untouched food away. “I think I’ll just go to bed now.”

Meg put Iris in her bassinet and stayed downstairs for a few moments longer, carefully covering the cheese and the meat with clingfilm before putting them away and feeding Gripper a few tidbits as she went in the hope that it would encourage her not to raid the fridge again. She wasn’t exactly sure what she had expected to happen when Robert came in, she realized, as she went rather hesitantly up the stairs, but she supposed she had thought he would be so pleased to see her up, awake and romantically inclined, even if she wasn’t that much of an expert at showing it. She had thought that he would at least be…friendly. Meg told herself she wasn’t being fair. After all the hard work her put in, he was entitled to be tired and grumpy. And if he’d stopped to have a drink, then he deserved it.

“Quality time isn’t snatching a few minutes when both of you are exhausted,” she told Iris in a soft, low whisper as she laid her down in her cot. “It’s about creating time and space to be together. I’ll suggest we find an evening. I’ll get a babysitter. When we’re both relaxed and in good moods we’ll be just like we always used to be, you’ll see.” She smoothed the back of her forefinger along Iris’s cheek before creeping out and pulling the nursery door shut.

Robert was already in bed, his back facing the door.

Meg slid off her dressing gown and climbed in beside him, feeling rather obvious now in the lacy nightie she had last worn on the romantic weekend break that had resulted in Iris.

“I saw this thing on the telly,” she said conversationally. “Silly, really, about how women should cherish their husbands more…”

“Really,” Robert said without turning over, an edge of irritation to his voice.

“That’s why I got you the food and stayed up, or tried to. I should have realized you’d be tired…” Meg trailed off, looking at the familiar and yet newly alien contours of Robert’s back. She reached out and laid her palm flat against one shoulder, feeling his muscles tense at her touch.

“After all,” she said, resolving to keep her hand against his skin, “we hardly see each other anymore, do we? And when was the last time you and I had time to ourselves?”

Robert turned abruptly onto his back, requiring Meg to move her hand quickly out of the way to avoid it being trapped by the weight of his torso.

“Don’t have a go at me,” he said, with quiet, compressed fury as he stared at the ceiling. “This is the way you wanted it.”

“What do you mean, this is the way I wanted it?” she said, feeling suddenly frightened.

“You wanted all this,” Robert said, gesturing sharply around at their bedroom, but meaning, Meg supposed, their house, their life. “And you wanted the big family and to be a full-time mom.”

“We both did, didn’t we?” Meg asked him.

“It takes a lot of work to keep this up on my own, Megan,” Robert went on without pausing to answer her and, Meg thought, maybe not even hearing her. “A lot of hard work. So I’m sorry if I’m not home at seven on the dot every evening to eat at a table with my family. I’m sorry if I’m out till all hours working my ass off to keep you in the manner to which you have clearly become accustomed, but that is just that way it is, because of what you wanted.” He rolled over to face away from her again.

“That’s not what I meant,” Meg said, unable to let the unraveling thread of the conversation go, even though she knew that the more she tugged at it the more the fabric of her life might fray and fall apart. “I didn’t mean to blame you, Robert. I do know why you are working all these hours. It’s hard for us both at the moment with four small children, but it will get better. And I just thought that perhaps we might be able to make a little bit of time for us here and there…”

Robert did not move. He did not even appear to breathe for several frightening moments and then he said, “I never wanted all this. All I wanted when we got married was you and me, but you kept going on about how much a big family meant to you, about your dream house and your dream life. Sometimes I wonder if that is all you ever wanted me for, to dish out the sperm and the cash.”

“Robert…”

“Because,” Robert went on, “if we didn’t have the kids and this house and a mortgage the size of the national debt, then…”

“Then what?” Meg asked compulsively.

“Then perhaps I’d have wife I wanted to come home to,” Robert said, his voice hard and angry. For a few seconds longer Meg watched him, waiting for him to turn back to her, to take her in his arms and tell her he was just tired and he’d had a bad day at work and that he was really sorry, he hadn’t meant anything he had said. Instead, more than a minute passed before he sat up and roughly pulled his dressing gown on around him.

“I’m hungry,” he said, getting out of bed. He turned the bedroom light off as he closed the door behind him.

That was what Robert had said to her last night, or rather earlier this morning. So, yes, she felt that she and James’s Teddy had quite a lot in common right now.

The doorbell rang and Gripper halted her assault on Teddy to bowl up the hallway and hurl herself at the front door, barking enthusiastically at the shadow on the other side of the stained glass. Meg realized that, with much the same excitement as the dog, James would soon be out of bed and downstairs to see who had arrived. At last she got off the chair. Sure enough, James was already at the door banging his palms against it as Gripper used the little boy’s shoulders to prop herself up onto her back feet. Above the noise Meg could hear Iris’s irritated wail begin to rise and thicken, proclaiming that she was hungry and wet and generally fed up.

Sweeping boy and dog aside, Meg opened the door.

“You’re not dressed!” Frances said, looking at her wristwatch. “We’re going to be really late.”

“Late?” Meg asked. Frances tutted and bustled past her with little Henry bundled in a thickly padded snowsuit that made his arms and legs stick out at doll-like angles.

“James is still in his pajamas, and is that Iris crying?” Frances shoved Gripper out of the way with a firm sweep of her leg. Meg followed her dumbly up the stairs and into the nursery.

“Late for what?” she managed to ask as she picked up Iris and took her to the change table.

“Steve’s!” Frances exclaimed irritably. “It’s that baby aerobics thing and we’re supposed to be going to Steve’s place first—remember? I said that meeting more than once a week would be too much but you were all for it. And now look. We’re supposed to be there in ten minutes.” Frances looked around the nursery as if formulating a plan of attack. “Well, we’ll just have to leave this mess for now. I’ll dress James while you see to Iris and then have a quick wash. If we drive we should only be about ten minutes late, which is just about acceptable even if you do only live over the road.”

Meg let the tidal force of Frances’s voice wash over her and recede before she spoke. “I’m not going today.”

Frances stopped folding the romper suits.

“Not going?” she asked. “But you have to!”

“I’m coming down with something. I’m really tired. You go, send my apologies, okay?” Meg sat down in the rocking chair and began to feed Iris, noticing how uncomfortable Frances was, being in the same room with her and her naked breast.

“I can’t go if you don’t go,” Frances said, sitting down abruptly and shifting the starfish-shaped Henry onto her knee.

“Why not?” Meg asked her. “Of course you can.”

“I can’t. You know I can’t. They don’t like me.”

Meg sank her head into her shoulders. The last thing she needed was to have to support Frances through another of her occasional bouts of paranoia.

“Of course they like you.” Meg forced her voice to sound friendly.

“They like you,” Frances said flatly. “They won’t like me going on my own without you.”

“Well, don’t go, then!” Meg said edgily.

“Are you saying I’m right?” Frances asked, her tone particularly high and thin. “Are you saying they don’t like me?”

“You said it, not me,” Meg replied. “I don’t think it at all. But in any case I’m not going today.”

“There’s no need to shout at me,” Frances said, even though Megan was sure she had not shouted.

“I’m just so tired and…” Meg had wanted to say sad, but she stopped herself. Frances would want to know why she was sad and she couldn’t tell Robert’s sister the truth.

“Okay, we won’t go,” Frances said, setting Henry on the floor and beginning to unzip him. “I’ll stay and here and help you get this place straight.”

“No!” Meg said with much more force than she intended.

Frances froze and looked up at Meg.

“No?” she asked, perplexed.

“Just go to the group, go to Baby Aerobics and have a good time, please,” Meg said, knowing she sounded quite rude and feeling both appalled and proud of herself at the same time.

“Fine,” Frances said, zipping Henry smartly up again. “Fine, I will go. I know when I’m not wanted.”

“Frances…” Meg called out without much enthusiasm as Frances flounced out of the nursery and stalked down the stairs.

“It’s just that I don’t feel well—” Meg tried again, but the front door had slammed shut even before she reached the end of the sentence.

“Mommy?” James’s tear-stained face appeared in the doorway. His lip trembling, he approached her, holding out something very small that glinted amber in the light. It was one of Teddy’s eyes.

“Teddy’s gone!” he wailed, tipping backward and hitting the carpet with a painful thud. “Gripper’s killed Teddy!”

Meg looked at her little boy lying on the floor, rigid with grief and bawling his eyes out. And she had to resist—with every ounce of her strength—the urge to lie down next to him and do the very same thing.