Everything and Nothing. Araminta Hall
still found it hard to get any clarity around a situation that had descended into such stomach-churning detritus, it was hard to place any decent feelings. Two women pregnant at the same time and yet only one child to show for it. One strange little boy who still, at the age of nearly three, never ate, hardly spoke and followed your movements like eyes staring out of a painting. Christian worried that Hal had absorbed his mother’s misery in the womb in the same way that some babies are born addicted to heroin. A key turned in his front door and he realised that his hands had grown cold in the sink.
Ruth was always going to be late, but still she felt like a naughty child. Christian wouldn’t understand. She hadn’t even got the necessary words to explain why she had always known she wouldn’t leave the office at six, but had arranged the interview for seven. Not that she had been able to predict the rain, of course, which jammed the tube so you felt you would suffocate even in the ticket hall. It unsettled her; the way the rain lashed at the city nowadays, the way the clouds darkened so quickly and furiously, without any warning. She couldn’t remember it having been like that in her own childhood and she fretted over what she would tell her children about the world they were growing into.
She could tell the girl was already there, just as she could tell the house had sunk even lower. Ruth was used to leaving every morning closing her eyes to the tangled sheets falling off all the beds, the washing exploding out of the laundry basket, the food drying onto plates in the sink, the fridge compartments that needed cleaning, the dirty hand prints on all the windows, the fluff which multiplied like bunnies on the stair treads, the unre-turned DVDs scattered around the machine, the recycling which needed transporting from beside the bin to the boxes at the front of the house, the name-tags not sewn into Betty’s uniform. The magnitude of these tasks pulled at her back like a bungee rope all the way to her offi ce. But this evening she thought they might at last have tipped from mess to squalor. She wondered if Christian had done it on purpose to punish her for keeping him from his stupidly important job where he got to pretend that he was an indispensable person every day of the working week. Light household duties, she had written in her advert; she wondered what that might consist of and decided on the usual laundry so that at least they would look like they held it together to the outside world. And food shopping; they had to eat, after all.
From the hall Ruth could see the girl on the floor with Betty. She looked so young, they could almost have been playmates. On the tube coming home Ruth had been hit by panic. Going back to work after two weeks immersed in childcare had jolted her and filled her mind with doubts. The final showdown with their last nanny was also still lodged in her brain. The weeping girl standing in the doorway with her bags already packed and her mind resolutely made up, saying she couldn’t take one more night listening to Betty screaming. I have to get some sleep, she’d said, forgetting surely that Ruth was the one who got up to the little girl hour after bloody hour, scaling each night like a mountain climber.
Then last week she’d found herself checking Christian’s texts, something she hadn’t done in over a year. Worse than the checking though was realising that she almost wanted to find something. That it would be more exciting than washing another load of socks or trying to make supper out of whatever was in the fridge. And she was too old to still be a deputy editor, wasn’t she? It had been a terrible mistake to have refused the editorship Harvey had offered last year.
‘I don’t get it,’ Christian had said when she’d wept to him over her final decision. ‘What’s the big fuss? If you want the job, do it; we’ll get more help. No big deal.’
‘No big deal?’ she’d repeated, the tears straining again against her better judgement. ‘Do you think your kids are no big deal?’
‘What do you mean? Why are you bringing the kids into this?’
‘Because obviously I’m not refusing the job for me.’
He’d sighed. ‘Oh God, please not the martyr act again. Why is your refusing the job anything to do with the kids?’
Ruth felt consumed by an annoyance so intense she worried she might stab her husband. ‘Because if I take this job I’ll basically never see them.’
‘What, like all the quality time you spend with them now?’
‘How can you say that? Are you saying I’m a bad mother?’ Ruth had felt as though she was losing her grip on the situation.
Christian poured himself more wine. ‘I’m saying that we both made a choice, Ruth. We both decided to pursue our careers. I’m not saying we’re right or wrong. I’m saying you can’t have it all.’
‘You seem to manage it.’
‘No, I don’t. I’d love to see more of them, but we bought a house we couldn’t afford because you wanted it and we have a massive mortgage.’
‘It wasn’t only me, I never forced you into buying it.’
‘I’d have been as happy somewhere smaller.’
But the truth was that Ruth was sure Christian did have more than her. He pursued his career with a single-minded focus and, as a result, had done very well. He didn’t feel guilt at being out of the house all day and so he could relish the time he spent with their children. For some primeval reason it didn’t appear to be his role to know about when their vaccinations were due or even whether or not they should have them. He didn’t feel compelled to read endless parenting books or to worry that his working caused behavioural problems in his children. He never took a half day to attend Christmas concerts or sports days, but if he happened to be around and turned up everyone noticed and thought he was a great father.
It was all these little injustices which wore away at Ruth until she felt as though her marriage was nothing more than a rocky outcrop being relentlessly lashed by the sea. And it wasn’t even as if she could articulate any of this to Christian, or he to her. And so they flailed along like blind bumper-car drivers, occasionally causing each other serious injury, but mainly just cuts and bruises.
‘You got her name wrong,’ said Christian as soon as Ruth walked into the sitting room. ‘It’s Aggie.’
Ruth sat down without even pausing to take off her coat because both Betty and Hal were trying to climb on her. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I must have misheard you on the phone.’
‘I couldn’t get away.’ Ruth realised she was apologising as much to Christian as Aggie. ‘You know, first day back and all that.’ She smiled at Aggie and mouthed over Betty’s head, ‘It’s been a nightmare.’ Who was she trying to be here?
‘Why don’t you put a DVD on for them?’ she said to Christian, and then felt the need to say to Aggie, ‘We don’t normally let them watch TV after five, but we’ll never finish a sentence if we don’t.’
The girl nodded, watching the children fight over which DVD they were going to see. In the end Christian lost his temper. ‘Look, I’m putting on Toy Story. It’s the only one you both like.’
Betty started to wail but they all kept their smiles fixed.
‘It’s either this or nothing,’ Christian shouted as he jabbed at the machine.
‘So.’ Ruth turned to Aggie. ‘Sorry about that. Right, well, let’s see. I suppose Christian has filled you in on us a bit.’
The girl blushed and tried to answer but nothing came out.
‘Sorry, Betty commandeered her,’ said Christian.
Ruth felt defeated before she’d even begun. ‘So you haven’t said anything about Hal yet?’
‘No, not yet, I was waiting for you.’ And there it was, the perfect get-out.
Ruth composed herself. ‘Sorry, Aggie, let me explain. Hal’s nearly three and he’s never eaten anything. Not ever. He lives off bottles of milk. I’ve taken him to the doctors but they say he’s perfectly healthy. Maybe a bit behind developmentally; I mean, he hardly speaks, but apparently that’s not overly worrying. We don’t know what to do next. I’ve got an appointment with a great nutritionist