Cuckoo Read online

  ‘In fact I wouldn’t have told you even now, if only …’

  ‘I can’t hear a word you’re saying, Charles.’ She didn’t want to hear, didn’t like the words. They were making terrible black stains on her mind, like blots of ink, spattering a clean white page. Her head had fallen back against the skirting board. He was ramming it against the wood, pinioning her arms too tight beneath his own.

  She tried to concentrate on the rational order of a measured world.

  ‘… this Platonic central order, with its universal symmetries, constitutes the rationale for a mathematical equation applicable to all systems of particulate matter …’

  It didn’t sound convincing in that barbaric roar.

  Charles was almost coming. She could feel him revving up, slamming her spine against the floorboards. She tried to pull away, but he resisted. He was talking, explaining, yet coming at the same time. She closed everything against him, even her ears, refused to accept the irrational things he was telling her.

  He was still thrusting, still coming, whispering now, almost incoherent. Across their coupled bodies crashed the last blaring words of the broadcast. ‘Thus, on the sub-atomic level, the traditional idea of scientific causality had been split apart.’

  Everything was split apart. Not just sub-atomic particles, but their whole sheltered, blue-chip, pre-Einstein universe. Charles was slumped on top of her, wet and silent now, inert.

  ‘This talk can be heard again, next Friday morning, at eleven.’

  ‘No, Charles,’ she shouted. ‘No! It can’t be true. I simply don’t believe you.’

  Chapter Five

  ‘Viv, I’m sorry to barge in like this, but …’

  ‘What on earth’s the matter? You look completely washed out.’

  ‘I … haven’t slept for two nights.’

  ‘Are you ill or something, Frances? There is a virus going round …’

  ‘It’s Charles. He’s … Look, it’s rather confidential. Can we talk in private?’

  ‘Well, there’s no one here except Midge and Rupert, and half a dozen cats. The only word Rupert understands is ‘‘more’’, and Midge is ill in bed. Come in.’

  Rupert was sitting on his potty, red in the face with effort. The remains of seven breakfasts were littered on the kitchen table, the sink an avalanche of nappies. Viv cleared a space among the bacon rinds and cleaned up Rupert on the table. His podgy fingers made patterns in the butter.

  ‘I was in the middle of feeding him when he started poohing. They time these things so badly! Mind if I continue?’

  ‘Not at all.’ Frances averted her eyes as Viv unlatched one huge breast and hoisted it off her stomach. Rupert lost himself among the folds. He was over a year old, but Viv loved breast-feeding. She’d be offering the nipple to her fourteen-year-old, if inconvenient things like school hadn’t come between them.

  ‘Go on, love, sit down. Now what’s the trouble?’

  Frances removed a half-chewed rusk from her chair-seat. ‘Charles has got a daughter.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘By another woman.’

  ‘You’re joking.’

  ‘No. She’s fifteen.’

  ‘Fifteen! But that’s almost grown up.’

  ‘Precisely.’

  ‘But didn’t you know? I mean where’s she been, all this time?’

  ‘With her mother.’ Her dark, passionate, tempestuous slut of a mother, who helped herself to babies without the little matter of a husband.

  ‘Frances, I can’t believe it. Not Charles.’

  ‘Oh no, not Charles – that’s what we all thought, didn’t we? Charles is so faithful and upright and considerate and busy and … But he isn’t, Viv. It’s all a lie. He’s a bigamist, more or less. I’ve worked it out. He must have conceived that baby less than a year before we were married, and she was born only weeks before the wedding. How on earth could he have gone ahead and married me, mixed up with all that? And then kept it a secret all these years.’

  ‘Frances, I’m stunned. I simply don’t know what to say. Look, let me get you some coffee. You must be absolutely shattered.’

  Frances turned away. Viv smelt of milk and unwashed babies. ‘No, Viv – thanks – I can’t keep anything down. Do you know, I was sick when he told me. I couldn’t stop vomiting. I knelt on the floor in the lavatory and shivered all over. And Charles just lay on the bed reading. He was actually reading, Viv. I saw him. A book on business management. I mean, how could he?’

  Viv stowed her breast away and came over to squeeze her hand. ‘It was only because he couldn’t face you, sweetie. He can’t really have been reading. He was just trying to hide. He must feel desperate himself.’ Rupert was screaming in deprivation. Viv turned back to him and stirred puréed prunes into cold porridge.

  ‘It was even worse the next day – yesterday, that was. Christ! It seems a hundred years ago. Charles took the morning off from work. He never does that – it’s unthinkable – he’s far too busy. I thought it was a sort of present to me, to make me feel better, give us time to talk about it all. But do you know what he did? He went straight out into the garden and started planting out spring cabbages. Forty or fifty of them, in dead straight rows. He just went on and on, in the pouring rain. You know how wet it was? Well, he didn’t even notice. He had this measuring gadget and he spaced every seedling exactly eighteen inches apart. I watched him. He was soaked through and absolutely fixated on those cabbages. He grew them from seed in the greenhouse and he’s been fussing over them ever since. He didn’t even look up when I went out to him. He might as well have gone to work and been done with it.’

  Viv scooped dung-coloured porridge from her housecoat and spooned it back into Rupert. ‘I’m so sorry, love. I only wish I could … Look, how on earth did you find out about it? I mean, if he managed to keep it secret all these years …’

  ‘He told me. Oh, he had to. The mother’s dumped the child on him. She’s going back to Budapest.’

  ‘Budapest?’

  ‘Yes, she’s Hungarian. Came over at the revolution and has lived here ever since.’

  ‘So why’s she going back?’

  ‘Oh, some story about her grandmother dying. Cancer or something. But there’s more to it than that. The grandma’s got a flat in Budapest and I think she wants to get her hands on it. She’s sick of England, so she’s making sure she’s in at the kill. Decent flats are like gold-dust in Hungary.’

  ‘But why can’t she take her daughter with her?’

  ‘That’s what I said. But they don’t want to disrupt her education. Magda’s quite bright, apparently, and preparing for her O-levels. They think she’ll get at least eight or nine. The system’s totally different in Hungary, so she’d have to start a new syllabus, in a different language. If she stays where she is, Charles thinks she might get into university. The mother’s all for it – she never had much schooling herself.’

  That was only half the story. The better half. There was some rotten Romeo mixed up in it as well. Charles had been cautious, telling her only what he chose. But she could guess the rest. His Hungarian whore didn’t want a teenager messing up her new little love-nest. Or maybe the man himself had refused to take her on. Miklos he was called – a fellow Hungarian. He wouldn’t welcome a half-English love-child cramping his style, another man’s brat, any more than she wanted a half-Hungarian one ruining her own life, even if it was her husband’s child. What a sordid mess the whole thing was. That’s why it hurt so much. She had always prized her marriage as impeccable and ordered, and now Charles had dragged it down in all this mire and confusion. Even the way he’d told her had made it so brutal. Blurting it out like that, when he was actually making love to her, lying on the floor. Magda’s mother must have taught him things like that. Every time he’d been to bed with her, he’d brought the taint of that other woman with him. Perhaps he’d sometimes slept with both of them on the very same day, had her juices dripping from his body. How could she say all this to Viv;
kind, shambling Viv who never had bitter, jealous thoughts, or felt like murdering a child she’d never seen?

  ‘Oh, Viv, if only …’

  ‘Coo-eee!’ The front door creaked and slammed. Viv got up, Rupert still clinging to her dressing-gown.

  ‘Oh hell, that’s Rachel. She’s bringing some guppies.’

  ‘Bringing what?’

  ‘Guppies. Fish. Philip’s hamster died, so we’ve got to make it up to him. Look, don’t worry. I’ll tell her you’re not well.’

  Rachel breezed in, with two jam jars and a grizzling three-year-old. ‘Hi, girls! Any coffee going? In exchange for half a dozen tiddlers and a water snail.’

  ‘Well, just a quick one, love. Frances isn’t feeling too good.’

  ‘Oh, bad luck. Got your period? No, don’t touch, Bella.’ The child had opened Frances’ bag and was fiddling with a lipstick. Rachel scooped her up and bounced her on her knee. If only she could cuddle a child, Frances thought, instead of hating it. Charles’ child had been tiny once, like Bella – whining, maybe, but harmless, blameless. Even now, she was still a child, still innocent. Any other woman would accept her, love her even. Was she a monster to feel so hostile, a selfish bitch without the normal, decent, female sentiments? It wasn’t easy. Bella was Rachel’s own kid, not a faceless fifteen-year-old, living proof of her husband’s infidelity.

  It still seemed almost unbelievable. Everything had changed in just one evening – an endless evening of talking, shouting, arguing. She had done the shouting. Charles had clammed up almost as soon as he’d told her. And when, at last, she emerged from the lavatory, he was lying in bed in his pyjamas, with his hair combed, and his face composed, as if nothing had happened, as if the sex and the outburst and the shock of telling her had sobered him up, and the other, wilder Charles had disappeared into its cage. He was now all reason and self-control. She hated him for it. Breaking her life apart and not even raising his voice. And the way he said ‘my daughter’ – it made her almost sick again. How could he have a daughter who wasn’t hers as well? Another secret woman in his life, all these years, deceiving her and double-crossing her, and negating all the love and trust she’d thought they’d shared. How could he do it, a man so methodical and orderly, and who loathed deceptions, if only because they couldn’t be tidied up and indexed? Did he have a notebook for the Other Woman – scarlet for lust – in which he noted down their couplings, the heart-breaking conception of their child?

  ‘Have a biscuit.’ Rachel passed the tin across. ‘I adore these chocolate gingers.’ Rachel broke a piece off and stuffed it into Bella’s mouth. The child spat it out, examined it, and put it back again.

  ‘How’s Charles, Frances? Busy as ever?’

  ‘Er … yes.’

  ‘I envy you. My spouse sits at home half the time, fiddling about with model aeroplanes. Hey, Viv, you don’t want a guinea pig, do you?’

  ‘I don’t mind. We’ve got three already.’

  Viv had room for all creation, and she couldn’t accept one abandoned child. ‘Look Rachel, I don’t want to sound rude, but Viv and I …’

  ‘You want me to go. OK, I’m going! I’ve left the oven on, in any case … Say goodbye nicely, Bella.’

  The door slammed and Viv sat down again. ‘Now, Frances, tell me more about this child. Magda, you say. It’s a pretty name, isn’t it? Poor kid, though, it must be awful for her.’

  ‘I hate her, Viv. Oh, I know it sounds brutal, but I feel I simply hate her. Just for existing. For ruining everything between Charles and me.’

  ‘But you haven’t met her yet. Give her a chance. She may be quite a sweetie.’

  ‘I’ll hate her even more, if she is.’ She hated herself, as well, for saying it, knew it sounded cruel. She’d always regarded herself as a decent sort of person, up till now – not as tolerant as Viv, perhaps, but basically humane. She’d never realized one could feel so bitter, violent almost. It had shaken her faith, not only in Charles, but also in herself. Why, in God’s name, did he ever have to tell her? If only he’d sent Magda to a friend’s house, or bought her her own flat, or insisted she went back to Budapest. He’d tried, she knew he had. He’d offered boarding school in Scotland, or private tuition back in Hungary – anything. But that wretched woman had refused it all, blackmailed him, more or less, threatened to tell her if Charles didn’t, or just turn up with Magda on the doorstep. She shuddered. At least she’d been spared the sight of Charles’ mistress in the flesh, his fingerprints all over her, her womb engraved with his initials.

  Viv was stacking dishes. She popped a discarded crust into her mouth, almost absent-mindedly, as if she were a waste disposal unit. ‘Perhaps Magda’s mother will have her in the holidays. That’s half the year, at least.’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’ Miklos was the stumbling block. She probably saw him as her last chance of marriage, or romance, or even affluence. Charles had hinted that he wasn’t badly off.

  ‘There’s a man involved, Viv. The perfect match. They’re both Catholics, and both from Budapest. What I imagine’s happened is that he insists on going back there, with his bride in tow, and refuses to be saddled with anything as unromantic as a teenager. So she dumps the child on us.’

  ‘Look, be fair, Frances, love. She has looked after her for fifteen years. That’s quite a stint on her own – without a husband to support her.’

  ‘She should have thought of that before she had the kid.’ She could hear herself sounding bitchy and unreasonable. Just because Viv had five children herself, and lived her life around them, she imagined everyone else was overflowing with the breast-milk of human kindness. Nice to be a Viv …

  ‘Look, Frances, just love her enough and she’ll accept you. They always do. Can’t you see her as a sort of big baby, or an adopted step-daughter? You always said you wanted a baby.’

  Frances burst into tears. Rupert joined in, louder. Midge trailed through the door, flushed and spotty in a torn nightie.

  ‘Why is Auntie Frances crying?’

  ‘She’s not, darling, she’s got a bad cold.’

  ‘I ‘ve got a cold, haven’t I, Mummy?’

  ‘No, you’ve got measles, love. Now you pop back to bed and I’ll bring you some nice warm milk.’

  ‘I hate nice warm milk. Auntie Frances is crying, Mummy.’

  ‘Yes. Well, we’ll make her some milk, shall we?’

  ‘That’s the worst thing, Viv, the very worst thing about it.’

  ‘What is? You ought to have something, you know, just a drink, or …’

  ‘The baby thing. I’ve never said much to you about it, Viv. I’m proud, like Charles. But we’ve been trying for years to have a child. Charles was always rather odd about it, never wanting to discuss it, just said vague, evasive things like ‘‘no rush’’ or ‘‘wait and see’’. I thought it was male pride. He wouldn’t even have the proper tests. Well, he didn’t need to, did he? He’d already proved his rotten fertility. But he let me go on thinking it was him. I’d had all the investigations and they’d found nothing. So, naturally, I assumed it was in his department. Well, up to last month I did. And now …’

  ‘But, Frances, maybe that was kind of him. Not to let you blame yourself. You’d have felt much worse if you’d known.’

  ‘I do feel worse. I feel absolutely betrayed. He’s deceived me over everything. Every single minute of our marriage has been a lie. Every time I’ve talked to him, he’s not been the person I thought he was. Even our wedding was a lie. He was married to her already, more or less.’

  ‘He wasn’t, Frances, that’s just the point. He couldn’t have wanted her, not really. Not to marry. He married you. It was probably just an affair which went sort of sour on him, but because she had his child, well …’

  ‘Careless bitch! As if there weren’t coils and pills and things. I bet she did it on purpose, just to trap him.’

  ‘That’s probably it, love. But it didn’t work. He still loved you and wanted to marry you.’

&n
bsp; ‘But how will I ever know? I can’t find out whether he loves this woman, whether he ever loved her, how much he’s been seeing her. How well does he know his own child, for example?’

  ‘Well, how well? Surely he told you that.’

  ‘Hardly at all, as far as I can gather. He’s been sending them money, but he didn’t seem to see Magda much after she was five or six. I think she got in the way of the affair, so to speak. The child embarrassed him.’

  ‘Poor kid. She must be feeling desperate, with no proper father and her mother waltzing off without her.’

  ‘Oh Viv, don’t say that. I do feel sorry for her. In theory, anyway. But I’m so shocked and …’

  The doorbell rang. ‘‘Doctor!’ carolled Midge. She was naked now, except for her father’s fishing cap.

  ‘Midge, where’s your nightie?’

  ‘I piddled on it.’

  Viv groaned, and turned to Frances. ‘Will you be all right, love? I won’t be a minute. Make yourself some toast.’

  Food solved everything for Viv. She had even plugged Rupert with a biscuit to keep him quiet. Frances could hear her slow, easy voice rising above the doctor’s baritone. She glanced at Rupert, who had regurgitated breakfast dribbling down his chin. She could never be a mother. All those gynaecological tests were just a sham. She lacked that vital ingredient which allowed you to love a child, even through prunes and piddled nighties. Rupert knew she was a brute, the way he stared at her, coldly almost, with his huge, undissembling blue eyes. She didn’t like Rupert and she couldn’t love Magda. True, a teenager wouldn’t be sicking up its breakfast, but it would still be a body. There was something so physical about a child – its smells, its noise, its orifices. She always noticed it at Viv’s, especially when all the family were there. Five mouths munching, five noses running, ten hands grabbing …

  ‘Keep her on liquids for the moment. Plenty of fluids. And try not to let her scratch the spots …’

  The doctor was booming his way out again. Viv returned to the kitchen, started washing up. Frances slumped back in her chair, as if to dissociate herself from the messy cluttered table. There were crumbs in the marmalade and tea stains in the sugar.