Pandora’s Box

Now that she’s noticed the missing bench, she’s looking around at other things, reluctant to go in, taking in all the modifications that have crept up on this garden over the years.

‘Where’s that orange rose “Maria Tierra” I bought you for your thirtieth?’ she asks suddenly.

Heavens, we are talking about over a decade here; where is it?

‘Bill kicked a football into it repeatedly one summer and it never recovered,’ I recall at last. He broke my rose bush, I think, with an unexpected flash of irritation, and now he isn’t even here to help me with Hattie’s palisade, not to mention the children.

‘You’ve got a vegetable patch,’ she comments, ‘and a herb patch!’ For some reason the enthusiasm in her voice warms me right through. I don’t let on that I only put those in because I thought they might save me a few pennies. ‘I’ve been telling Bryan I want one of those put in, for ages, and you’ve got there before me,’ she accuses.

‘The vegetable patch is something Sol does with Daniel, on and off. The herb patch is mine, I planted it a year ago and I’ve managed to kill off even the mint. You remember I gave you a bunch of mint last summer?’

‘Oh yes,’ Annie-Jo is still looking around as if she’s never been in this garden in her life, ‘so you did. Sol helps Daniel with his vegetable patch, does he? Lucky you.’

‘How so?’

‘He’s a good-looking guy, Rach,’ she grins at me coyly. ‘There are plenty of women I know who wouldn’t mind having your boss around to help out with their gardens…’

I figure I’d better not mention that it was him who installed the treehouse or there might be ‘plenty of women’ putting two and two together and ending up with five.

‘If you’re thinking of him as a potential partner for me, darling, I thought you knew, he doesn’t swing that way.’

Annie-Jo laughs dismissively as if this is just a tinyweeny little blot on the horizon; some minor irritating male habit that any good woman could train him out of.

‘Last I heard, he’d broken up with his partner—Adam, was it? Maybe he’s not gay after all? It does happen, you know. Sometimes the right woman comes along…’

‘No,’ I laugh at her. ‘No, no, no!’

‘He’s got his own successful antiques business,’ she carries on regardless, ‘he’s delightful. He clearly likes your children. And he likes you. Maybe more than just a bit?’

‘Such a pity I don’t fancy him, though.’

‘Fancying is a luxury afforded only to teenagers and rich women!’ Annie-Jo scoffs. ‘You’re forty-two now, Rach. If you don’t want to be stuck on your own forever you’ve got to start getting realistic. Take what’s available, if you catch my drift.’

Whatever makes her think that Sol might be available? He might have broken off with Adam (‘He’s getting so old, Rach, he’s really let himself go!’) but now he is besotted with Justin. Hell, I’m not even going there.

‘That smacks of desperation, my dear, and I’m not desperate.’

Whatever has brought that on, I wonder? I’m not even looking for a man. All I ever think about are the children, especially Shelley, she takes up all the space in my thoughts.

She is dying, how can it be otherwise?

‘How’re you and Bryan doing?’ I glance surreptitiously at Annie-Jo’s belly as she perches on the low garden wall. It is as flat as ever, but that’s just Annie-Jo; she could be six months gone but she’d keep her figure to the last.

‘Doing great. Just great.’ Annie-Jo smiles. Her right foot is swinging languidly, crossed over her left leg. ‘A little tired, that’s all.’

‘I thought you were looking a little tired,’ I prompt. Is she going to ’fess up here?

‘His mother’s just downsized and we’ve inherited all her antique rosewood furniture. It’s Japanese. Very rare. Absolutely gorgeous, but I’ve had to redecorate and rethink the entire lounge to make it fit.’ She pulls a ‘this is so tedious’ face but I know underneath she is thrilled. Being hooked into someone like Bryan means she can inherit the kind of things she once would only have dreamed of.

‘Wow!’ I enthuse. I’m just hoping that the growing sensation of envy I’m feeling isn’t showing in any way. Annie-Jo gets to inherit antique Japanese furniture. I get Pandora’s bloody box. But I don’t want to be envious. Envy is one of the Spites, isn’t it? Pandora’s box is working overtime here.

No, I’m happy for my friend, of course I’m happy…it’s not that I even want any more babies or to get married again. I mean, okay, once upon a time I did. Bill and I were actually discussing the possibility of going for a third child when all Shelley’s troubles appeared, and, like a tropical storm, blew our whole lives away.

Anyway, maybe it’s just as well that never happened because I’ve got too much on my plate now as it is. I just want…hell, I’m not sure what I want. I want a miracle to happen and for Shelley to be well. If you live in hope of a miracle then it doesn’t seem fair to hope for ordinary things like a normal life as well.

‘And of course, Bryan’s just got the Risling contract. I mentioned that, didn’t I? He’s taking us to Barbados in fact, in a couple of weeks. He says he’d like to celebrate it in style.’

‘Wow.’ What else can I say? I’m dying to ask if the Risling contract is all they are celebrating, but if she isn’t telling then I’m not asking. I cast my mind back to the day, eleven years ago now, that I’d driven her down to the chemist for a pregnancy test when she was expecting Josh because she’d been too frightened to do it by herself. I don’t know if she’s thinking about the same thing herself, or whether she’s thinking about anything very much at all. Her gaze spreads out over the garden, back to examine her nails and then to some non-existent specks of fluff on her skirt.

‘Sounds great,’ I enthuse, but she doesn’t elaborate. We both fall silent for a bit after that. Is she bored?. Maybe it is me? I don’t have much to talk about these days that comes within her sphere of interest, that is the problem. What is she interested in, though? She has Bryan, and they have an idyllic lifestyle. They always seem so besotted with each other. I wish she and I could just talk to each other, the way we used to. We used to be able to talk about anything. I remember the time she thought her fella of the moment was seeing someone else and I’d ventured to tell her that I thought maybe Bill was seeing someone too. Because he’d become all withdrawn and defensive. I’d only said it to make her feel better. I hadn’t known then that Bill really was seeing someone else. I had never even imagined it could really be true, but afterwards Annie-Jo had been convinced that I’d ‘sensed it all along’. For ages, she’d been the only person who’d known about it, till he moved out and the cat was out of the bag. ‘So…things still as good between the two of you?’

‘Of course!’ She’s been biting her nails and she stops abruptly. I remember A-J used to be an inveterate nail-biter but she obviously doesn’t do that, these days, and gives me a dazzling smile. ‘Bryan is all I ever wanted in a man. I just hope that one day you find the happiness that I have,’ she tells me solicitously.

‘You’ve been lucky,’ I tell her, and I push down the bitterness that surfaces suddenly and forcefully from nowhere. A man in my life would be great; maybe, one of these days.

Just at this moment I would settle for far less, though, just the friendship of an old, long-time friend. The kind of friend that takes on board your troubles, wherever you’re at in your life at the time. We used to be like that. I remember the time Annie-Jo had been so fraught and sleep-deprived that she’d taken her daughter out to the shopping mall in her pushchair and left her there, outside Mothercare. I hadn’t believed her at first but when she didn’t produce Michelle I’d got straight in the car and gone down there myself. Lo and behold, the child had still been there; fast asleep in her buggy. I’d suffered the few dirty looks I’d got from onlookers in silence as I’d wheeled her quickly away. I wondered if Annie-Jo remembered any of that now; the way we used to be.

I want the old Annie-Jo back, but she isn’t the old Annie-Jo and I’m not the Rachel I used to be when I was ‘Rachel-and-Bill’, either. Whatever happened to us?

‘The boys will be all right up there, will they?’ She glances towards the treehouse, which is a super-duper all-singing all-dancing one with bells on, typical of Sol. Of course they’ll be all right. Annie-Jo never used to fret about Josh either. It was me who was the fretting type. These days I’ve realised we actually have control over so very little in our lives, I just coast along as best I can.

‘They’re going on scout camp, aren’t they?’ I remind her. ‘They’ll have to put up their own tents and grill their own sausages.’

‘Ah yes, that reminds me.’ She turns at last and is following me into the house. ‘You have to pay the remainder of camp monies owing before next week. Arkaela needs the money before Thursday.’

Shit, I’d forgotten. I didn’t like to ask Bill to help out but I was going to have to; it was either that or the gas bill would get put off again.

‘Fine.’ I wave a nonchalant hand at her. I know that one hundred and fifty pounds is precisely nothing for Annie-Jo these days; I don’t want her to guess what hardship it is for me. It is stupid pride on my part, I know. When Annie-Jo was in her bedsit days I couldn’t count the times Bill and I helped her out with food and nappies and things. We never had much either, but we had so much more than she did. She’d probably help me out too if I let her.

I turn away, so I don’t have to catch that hint of detached pity in her eyes.

‘I’ve got the money,’ I tell her, ‘I just forgot.’

‘Well it’s hardly any wonder.’ She follows me through the lounge into the kitchen. ‘You’ve just had that fabulous treehouse put up; Daniel was telling us all about it on the way here. It must have taken a while to do. And workmen about the place can be so distracting.’ She nods towards the boys in their den. We can see the treehouse quite easily from the kitchen table and she doesn’t take her eyes off it. ‘That must have cost you an arm and a leg.’ She glances at me sideways. ‘Unless Bill did it for his elder son?’

‘Not Bill.’ I shake my head.

‘No?’ She sips at the tea I put in front of her. No sugar these days, I’ve remembered that. ‘Mind you, he wouldn’t have too much time on his hands as I hear. Things being what they are at home.’

This is Annie-Jo in her incarnation as gossip queen. It’s what they do at the Maidstone ‘Domestic Goddess’ meetings when they’ve done with other matters. It’s taken her off the scent of who put up the treehouse for me, though, so I’m grateful for that.

‘How are things at Bill’s home?’ I smile at her.

‘Fraught, I hear.’ She gets the gen from her sister-in-law who goes to the same NCT group as Stella. Annie-Jo still thinks I want to hear all the gossip about Bill. I used to, five years ago when we’d first split and it was still rankling that I was the one left on my own while he’d moved on and found someone else. I don’t any more.

‘Poor things.’ I sidle over to the sink and give my hands a good rinsing under the tap while she stares out over the garden as if the boys might disappear any minute. ‘Nikolai isn’t letting them get much sleep, I hear.’

Annie-Jo gives me a significant look, but her lips remain firmly pressed together. Is she remembering the ‘pram in the mall’ incident or is she thinking about something else altogether?