Everything and Nothing. Araminta Hall
night.
Ruth pulled herself together because babies hold all illnesses apart from their own in contempt, but the world remained distorted. From then on everything she had jumped and skipped to only twenty-four small hours before became as hard as leaving a new lover in a warm bed on a cold winter’s day. She started to feed Betty from jars, Christian’s supper was often absent, the cleaning went undone for weeks on end. She began to hate the park in the same way that she had once hated flying, something she couldn’t ever imagine doing again. Even the women whom she was starting to make friends with now seemed foreign, the language they spoke disconcerting and meaningless. She was never going to be as competent as they were, days were never again going to wash over her, fear was beginning to limit her every moment.
Ruth had felt as though she was disappearing. Her bones felt slushy in her body so that sometimes she was sure she was going to faint in the park or fall down the stairs while holding Betty. She worried constantly about what would happen to her precious daughter, who she loved as ferociously as a mother lion. She calculated that if she died just after Christian left for work that would be twelve hours Betty would have to spend alone. Certainly she’d be scarred for life if not seriously injured or killed. And when he spent the night away on a programme she couldn’t sleep for anxiety, feeling as if she was falling through the bed and into oblivion when in truth she was simply exhausted.
Things came to a head when going to the supermarket became terrifying. She recognised the irony. Here she was, a woman who had backpacked round Asia, spent a year at an American university, moved to London after meeting Christian only once and worked her way up a very greasy career ladder, now paralysed by the thought of a few aisles of food.
Ruth tried to grab onto the person she had been but couldn’t find herself however hard she looked. She remembered a confident woman, but it was like watching a film, the idea that she would ever climb back into that skin impossible. After nine months at home she realised that it was only going to get worse. She looked at all the women in the park and marvelled at their self-lessness. There was an army of women out there, she realised, who had made the ultimate sacrifi ce, themselves for others, and she had nothing but respect for them.
The Monday that Aggie started should have been insignificant for Christian. He prayed she’d work out because he couldn’t bear the eruption of stress from Ruth if she didn’t. They’d have to go through all those tedious conversations again about her staying at home when they both knew she never would. Full-time motherhood hadn’t suited her, but still she would flirt with the idea. He couldn’t understand why Ruth was so prepared to waste both of their precious time on arguments that had no answers or endings. She could worry about anything and nothing with equal importance, so that sometimes his head spun and he felt as though he was on a rollercoaster.
But Ruth seemed happy when he’d left and Aggie had already been in the kitchen fixing breakfast for Betty and ignoring the fact that Hal wouldn’t eat, something which he’d always silently believed to be the best policy. But Ruth would insist on fussing round him so much at every meal. He wondered how she had the energy and optimism to start every day thinking Hal would eat, to go to the trouble of putting food in front of him at every meal, to dance around him with the spoon, begging and pleading. If Christian had a say he’d have stopped offering Hal anything and then given him a few biscuits after a couple of weeks. It was odd how Ruth never considered that the GP might be right. But he never said anything because decisions like this were always Ruth’s remit. He was scared to get involved in the important stuff, not just because of the argument he could so easily cause, but also because he’d be setting a precedent and more would be expected of him in the future.
Carol, his production manager, reminded him they had the interviews for the new admin assistant when he got in, which sounded boring, but nothing too serious.
‘I’ve narrowed it down to three,’ she was saying. ‘Do you want to see their CVs before we go in?’
But he was already reading his emails. ‘No, thanks. Anything I should know? Any of them only got one leg?’
She laughed. ‘No, nothing like that. They all seem great.’
He had a meeting with the Chairman at ten who wanted to know how the contract with Sky was going, which took up two minutes, and then they spent half an hour laughing about the new reality show from the weekend. By the time he got out Carol was annoyed with him because their first interviewee had been sitting in reception for ten minutes and he’d obviously forgotten. Right, right, Christian had said as he’d grabbed a cup of coffee on his way in.
They sat at a Formica desk in a room which someone had designed to look jaunty by adding a couple of round windows framed in acid colours. Touches like this depressed him as he hated anyone pretending that work was fun. It wasn’t like he had a bad time, but he wouldn’t choose to be there. Which wasn’t what Ruth thought. Ruth constantly told him that he’d rather be at work than at home, that he was better friends with his colleagues than his actual friends, that he probably worked on programmes he didn’t have to only because he enjoyed it. Christian found the last accusation hard to fathom. Firstly, it wasn’t true and he wouldn’t do it, but secondly what would be so wrong about him enjoying something? Ruth seemed to live with a constant yoke of resentment around her neck and couldn’t bear it if he had more fun than her. Sometimes he considered compiling a fun chart like the children’s star charts and they could tick off the minutes they’d each enjoyed during the day and at the end of the week the loser would get an afternoon to themselves. The flaw in this plan was that they would both have to be honest and both have to have the same perception of fun. Ruth, for example, claimed that going out for lunch with Sally was all right, but because she was always on her guard it wasn’t exactly fun. Jesus, he wanted to say, take what you can.
The door opened and Sarah walked in. They were both thrown so immediately and physically off guard that Christian couldn’t pretend to Carol that he didn’t know her. He also couldn’t help but wonder if Sarah might have engineered the situation.
‘Do you know each other?’ asked Carol.
Christian stood up. ‘Sorry, I didn’t know you were coming in. Yes, we used to work together at Magpie.’
Carol, thankfully, was hard-skinned. ‘Well, I did say you should read the CVs.’
Sarah had changed. She was a lot thinner and her face was paler. She’d also let her hair revert to its natural colour, which was much darker than Christian had realised, and her clothes were more demure. She was much, much more attractive and Christian felt himself start to sweat. He couldn’t think what to say and let Carol do all the talking, which she enjoyed so didn’t notice his silence. Sarah stumbled over her answers and rubbed her blotchy, rash-covered neck, which made Christian remember things he shouldn’t.
As she left, Christian felt the air move and was relieved when Carol said, ‘Sorry, I misjudged her. She was so confident last time. That was awful. What was she like at Magpie?’
‘I can’t remember. We didn’t work directly together, I don’t think she was there long.’
Carol tossed Sarah’s CV into the bin. ‘I think we can forget that one then.’
The next girl was much better than Sarah and even the third, who had hygiene problems, would have been preferable. After they were done he told Carol he had a meeting and left the office. Christian walked towards the park, a dull pain building behind his eyes and rang Ruth.
‘You okay?’ he asked.
‘Not bad. Busy.’
‘Are you?’
‘No need to sound so surprised.’
‘I wasn’t, I just . . . ’ He searched for what he wanted to say, but there was nothing he could articulate. He wanted her to tell him he was being stupid.
‘Look, did you want something?’ she said now and he could see her perfectly, the phone wedged between her ear and her shoulder, her fingers tapping on the keyboard. ‘It’s just that I want to leave on time tonight, give the kids a bath.’
‘No, nothing.