Morag Joss - Half Broken Things

Steph reached the house and saw that Sally’s car was parked outside. ‘She’s back, Charlie,’ she told him as she unstrapped him from the pushchair and carried him to the door. ‘Never mind,’ she whispered, bracing herself to part with him.

She had to leave the pushchair in the front garden because the hall was too full of a freshly dumped consignment of new stuff. With Charlie in her arms she picked her way across the threshold, past Sally’s luggage, a plastic picnic box, supermarket bags, cases of wine and Sally herself, who was leaning against the wall with the phone at one ear, listening grimly to what must be a long speech at the other end. She squeezed up to let Steph by, ruffling Charlie’s hair and pouting at him. In the kitchen Steph came upon a huge, glass-eyed, orange teddy bear, perched up on a chair. It was wearing a leather balaclava, a fringed white silk scarf and a sash that read ‘Fкte de Deauville’. Charlie took one look at it and began to wail. Steph backed out and carried him into the dining room, where she set about changing him and getting him into his pyjamas. She felt she could hardly turn round without bumping into things; even though none of the fall-out from Sally’s trip seemed to have made it this far, there still seemed to be less space than before for her and for Charlie. The room itself seemed smaller, as if during the past four days the walls had been quietly and malevolently shuffling forwards and closing in. She realised that Michael had been right about getting bigger. In this house she felt the opposite of how the manor made her feel. Here, she wondered if she ought to try to shrink. She said little enough in Sally’s presence, but even the voice inside her wanted to make more noise and use up more air than this house was prepared to allow her. She felt as if even the taking of a deep breath would cause her to expand into some place she should not go.

Steph could hear through the open door that Sally was now talking back aggressively to whoever was on the telephone. She sounded slightly drunk. Steph could not quite catch the meaning, but as the hissing voice reached their ears, it seemed that Charlie was picking up the atmosphere, staring up at her with a kind of mourning in his eyes. ‘I know, I know,’ she told him softly, ‘but don’t you worry.’ She was praying to herself that it was not Philip at the other end of the telephone. What if the holiday had been a disaster and Sally was right now giving him his marching orders? It was just the way Sally would do it, she thought; full of indignation and certainty, as if Philip had all along simply been wasting her precious time. Heaven forbid that Sally might find herself without the diversion of a boyfriend and with more time and energy for her son. Just then the telephone was banged down.

‘Bloody bastard!’ Sally shouted down the hall on her way to the kitchen. ‘Want a coffee, Steph?’

Steph had grown accustomed to proper coffee, not Sally’s brackish instant, but if she were being asked to stay and have coffee it meant that Sally was about to go off on one of her rants and wanted Steph there to listen. She called back that that would be lovely, and made a ‘yuck’ face at Charlie, who grinned. When she took him into the kitchen a few moments later she found her mug of coffee and Charlie’s bottle of formula waiting. But he was barely awake now, full to the gunnels with the last feed he had had from Steph before leaving to come back. He sucked his thumb in her arms, while his eyelids floated reluctantly down over his eyes and slowly up again.

The orange teddy had been dumped on the floor and Sally occupied the chair where it had been sitting. She had a glass of wine in front of her and was eating pistachio nuts out of a box on the table. Steph slipped into another chair, glad that the bear was out of Charlie’s sightline even though he was probably too bog-eyed to notice it.

‘Oh, look at him,’ Sally said, with her head on one side. ‘Tired out.’

‘Oh, just glad to be back with his mum, I should think,’ Steph said. She made a point of coming out with this sort of rubbish. She took a sip of her coffee.

‘Oh, Steph- France, ’ Sally announced, raising her glass and waving it in the direction of the nuts, ‘France is fantastic. They’re a third of the price over there, pistachios. Have some, go on. And the wine’s amazing. This was two quid a bottle. D’you like wine? Oh, I should have offered. You can take a bottle home with you if you like, we brought back loads.’

‘Oh! Oh, thanks!’ Steph smiled. She was getting quite choosy about wine, although not as choosy as Jean and Michael, who could hold quite long conversations about it. In fact at this time of day, she never drank coffee. Michael would usually be handing her a drink, probably champagne, about now. It was funny to think of Jean taking Sally’s bottle of plonk and considering whether or not it was good enough to cook with. She could picture her wrinkling her nose at the label, raising an eyebrow. and murmuring about some recipe or other. She smiled. ‘Well, we’ve had a very nice time, too, haven’t we, Charlie?’ she said in a rather bouncing voice.

‘Oh God. God, so did we!’ Sally drawled, stretching her arms up behind her head and lifting her hair. ‘Oh, God, the joy, not being woken up at six. And Philip, really- he’s fantastic.’ She looked away, yawning and rapt in some luxurious memory. ‘I’m bloody shattered, actually.’

‘Yes, a lovely time we’ve had,’ Steph said. ‘He was absolutely fine, ’cause he’s a good little baby, aren’t you, Charlie?’

Sally gave a small snort and drew her arms back down onto the table, where they landed heavily. ‘That’s exactly what I said. On the phone just now. He’ll be perfectly happy, I said, he’s as happy as Larry with her. At this age they’re very adaptable, I said, but he doesn’t get it, though. His generation can’t.’ She slurped some wine.

‘His generation?’ Steph looked at her. ‘I did sort of wonder, I mean I wondered if that was… so it wasn’t…’

Sally looked at her scornfully, as if Steph had not been paying proper attention. ‘That was Charlie’s grandad, miserable old sod. My father-in-law. He’s still on his campaign, ringing up and fretting. Been trying to get me all weekend, apparently. Like it’s a crime to go away! I mean it’s not like he’s ever on hand, he hardly ever bothers to come and see him- Charlie wouldn’t know his grandfather from the bloody Archbishop of Canterbury! But he’s all het up because I dare to have a few days’ break and leave Charlie with other people.’ She snorted again and filled up her glass. ‘He’s never once really asked about me . Doesn’t want to know how I’m managing. Because God forbid, what if I asked him to help? Oh, he’s not up for that. So just now I told him straight,’ she said, in a tone that left Steph in no doubt that she had, ‘straight out, I told him, your precious grandson is fine, as I keep telling you, but no, I haven’t a clue how your precious son is, because he doesn’t ring up here any more. He hasn’t phoned for three weeks, that’s the sort of father and husband he is. And you might as well know, I said, I’ve been away. On holiday. In France, and with someone else.’

When Steph said nothing Sally went on, ‘I did. I just told him. I said you might as well know I’m seeing someone, and he’s a bit more clued up than your precious son. Clued up in every way. I did! I’m past caring.’ She giggled at Steph’s shocked face.

‘And of course that didn’t go down too well but I knew, you see, I knew he’d get all embarrassed and change the subject, and sure enough all of a sudden he’s back on his favourite topic: when are we getting Charlie christened. Been on about it since he was born.’ She sighed and drank some more. ‘Wants it sorted out before he goes off on holiday. I said I wasn’t taking that sort of pressure.’ She leaned back in her chair until it creaked. ‘Frankly, I preferred him when he was depressed. At least it kept him quiet.’