Джонатан Коу - Middle England

Shaking visibly now, she put her head in her hands. Lukas put his arms around her. Sophie leaned across the table and clasped her hand as well.

For a while it seemed that Grete was not going to be able to finish telling the story. And so it was Lukas who continued:

‘Grete was really upset by this episode. Really shaken. It was the first time – I mean, ever since the referendum, we had felt, both of us had felt, this slight change in the way that people – some people – spoke to us, or looked at us when they heard us speaking, even when we were speaking English, but this was the first time anything like this had happened, anything really aggressive or violent. In the end we decided that we should go to the police and report it. The guy had just got into his car and driven off and we didn’t know the number or anything but we thought he would be pretty easy to find. But we also thought it would be helpful if we had some witnesses, so we decided to call on Mrs Coleman, because she had seen the whole thing.

‘We visited her house the next morning, which was a Sunday, and when we got there we could see that Ian’s car was parked outside.’

‘To tell the truth, I was quite glad,’ said Grete, who seemed to have recovered some of her composure now, ‘because I had always found Ian to be a little easier to talk to and – I hope it’s all right for me to say this – a little … friendlier, than Mrs Coleman herself? I mean, I had worked for her for quite some years and spent quite a lot of time in her house and in all that time I had never really …’

‘I know what you mean,’ said Sophie.

Grete smiled thankfully and continued: ‘Well, it was Ian who answered the door to us. He was very pleased to see us, very warm and very kind. He and his mother had been drinking tea in the kitchen. We had our daughter with us, our daughter Justina, and although she is very well behaved we didn’t want to put them to any inconvenience, so Lukas took Justina into the front room and played with her there while I talked to Ian and his mother. Ian asked me to sit down and offered me a cup of tea but I said it was all right, I wasn’t going to stay for very long. I sat at the kitchen table between them but I had not been speaking for long when Mrs Coleman started to gather up their tea things and took them to the sink to wash them. It’s not that she wasn’t listening, I don’t think. It was more that she already knew what I was going to say, and wanted to prepare her answer. Briefly I told Ian what had happened – in fact they had already been discussing it, and he was very kind about it, very sympathetic – and then I said that we’d decided to go to the police, and would Mrs Coleman be prepared to come forward as a witness and just confirm what had happened.

‘Helena was still standing by the sink, her hands immersed in the water, looking out through the kitchen window. Ian said to her: “That would be OK, wouldn’t it, Mum? I mean, you did see the whole thing.”

‘She did not speak at first but eventually she replied: “Yes, I did.”

‘We waited for her to say something else. We waited for quite a long time.’

Sophie, too, waited for Grete to continue. Despite the clatter of cutlery all around her, the comings and goings of the busy restaurant, she could hear and picture the scene clearly: the terrible stillness of that too-familiar kitchen; the gentle swishing of the water in the sink as Helena moved her hands; Helena’s eyes, the palest of blues, liquid, rheumy, staring out fixedly at the rose garden her husband had planted years earlier: the buds that were yet to open, the flowers that were yet to bloom. She remembered sitting out in that garden herself, the very first day she had met Ian’s mother. She remembered the ferocity with which the old woman had gripped her arm, the unnerving strength and steadiness of those eyes.

‘Finally,’ Grete said, ‘Helena spoke. She spoke very quietly; and there was a sadness in her voice too. A real sadness. That was what made it so hurtful, in a way. She said …’ Grete took a deep breath. Clearly it pained her to repeat these words. ‘She said: “I think, on the whole, it would be better if you and your husband went home.”

‘I honestly didn’t understand at first. I thought she was just referring to our house at the other end of the village. But that’s not what she meant. “I’m afraid,” she said (and I have to admit, by the way, that it always puzzles me how the English use this phrase, as if it actually frightens them to say something bad, when of course it’s the person they are talking to who should be frightened – it’s a strange thing, I don’t think you find it in any other language), anyway, “I’m afraid,” she said, “that what happened yesterday is only going to continue happening, in one form or another. It was always going to happen. It’s inevitable.”

‘ “Inevitable?” I repeated. But she didn’t speak again.

‘I sat there, trying to take in what she had just said. I was lost for words, actually. Then Ian said something like, “Mum, all she’s asking is that you tell people what happened,” but I rose to my feet and stopped him and said: “It’s all right, Ian. Your mother has made herself very clear. I know exactly what she is trying to tell me. I’m going now.”

‘I walked quickly out of the kitchen and into the front room, where Lukas and Justina were playing. I picked my daughter up and said, “Come on, we’re going now,” and took her to the front door. He –’ glancing at her husband ‘– followed me, not really understanding what was going on. Ian was at the front door and he tried to stop me leaving but I brushed past him and took Justina straight out to the car.’

‘I went out to the car as well,’ Lukas said, ‘to try and ask what was the matter. But Grete wouldn’t tell me. She was just strapping Justina into the car seat and not really speaking. But the front door was still open and so I went back into the house. I went down the corridor and into the kitchen and when I got there Ian and his mother were having a terrible argument.’

‘What was he saying?’ Sophie asked.

‘I don’t remember. They were raising their voices – not shouting at each other, exactly, but … certainly they were very angry. It was a bad argument. But I don’t remember what they were saying.’

*

‘I realized that what really outraged her,’ Ian said to Sophie later that night, as they lay in bed together, and he trailed his fingers delicately along the soft ridge of her bare shoulder, ‘was the simple fact that I wasn’t supporting her. That’s what she wanted from me. That’s what she expected. Unconditional support.’ He kissed her shoulder, now, then moved his hand across the lovely plateau of her stomach, feeling the subtle indentation of her belly button, until it came to rest on the curve of her hip. ‘She kept saying to me, “Whose side are you on? Whose side?” That was how she saw it. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before – that this was basically how she’d been living her whole life. In a state of undeclared war.’

Sophie stroked his thigh. It felt nice to be touching him again: his muscle, his skin, the fair, downy hairs on the inside of his thigh and the coarser, thicker hair as her hand moved in closer.

‘When did you last speak to her?’ she asked.

‘That morning. Two months ago.’ He kissed her.

‘You’ll have to make it up.’

‘Eventually. But we’ll never –’ he kissed her again ‘– go back to how it was before.’

‘Neither will we,’ said Sophie, her heart fluttering as she felt his hand begin to circle her breast.

‘But at least you’re back,’ said Ian, kissing her one more time, then brushing his lips gently along the line of her jaw. ‘Aren’t you?’