Something I'm Not (2 page)

I wasn't sure quite what to say. Did I really want Dad seeing pictures of abused children, or reading slogans about paedophiles? Did he even know they were there? Or was his approval, one artist to another, misconceived? I tried to lead him away.

He laughed. ‘If a tranny potter from Essex can find ways in this world to be comfortable in his own skin, Amber darling, then so can you!' And his bony hands had patted mine.

I warned him years ago that Matt and I won't be providing him with grandchildren. I don't think I've ever wanted to be a mother. Not even when I was little was I drawn to dolls or small animals like my friends were; some took home the class mice for the weekend, but I was never interested. And, in any case, my mother told me that girls who played with dolls that wet themselves were common.

As a teenager reading
Jackie
(when my mother hadn't confiscated it), I fantasised about marrying the perfect boy, but never pushing a pram. Boyfriends came and went. Some of them I slept with. I asked none of them, in that dreamy post-coital haze, how many children they wanted. My last boyfriend was Matt.

Matt had been at school with Dylan. And I am for ever in Dylan's debt for fixing us up. Matt is tall and sandy-haired, his skin a flush of beautiful freckles. When we first met, he reminded me of an antelope, his athleticism exuding the good health of a childhood spent on an orange farm. I often imagine him as a boy, with skinny bronzed limbs, and always with a ball of some description in his hands. And somewhere deep down I think that, in marrying him, I hoped to marry into a childhood of vast, blue skies and ripe fruit.

But first, of course, I had to have That Conversation. The one about having children. And, having fallen in love practically at first sight, I decided on full disclosure after we'd been dating only a fortnight. Better, I figured, to know up front than to torture myself for months or maybe years, and get it wrong. And so I cooked him
coq au vin
, and after a few beers, and wearing the white jeans Matt had told me made my bottom look peachy (I am nothing if not thorough), I confessed to a dormant maternal instinct. And Matt had covered my hands in his own and replied that he'd always felt ambivalent about children, and that in his view one needed to be very passionate indeed about the prospect of creating life. He had gone on to add that if he were to marry a woman desperate for children, he'd probably go on to be the father of a rugby team. But that that wouldn't happen, because he wanted to marry
me
.

Part of me was shocked by the speed of this declaration, how it propelled us to a new land I hadn't realised I longed to visit. And part of me felt relieved that finally I'd been found.

I turn my mind to the impending dinner party. That sweltering summer afternoon, I assemble ingredients. A childhood dazzled by Fanny Cradock and the
Galloping Gourmet
has fostered in me an addiction to
mise en place
. Dylan claims that I count out salt grains; that my food preparation is an art form which makes Shock and Awe look positively slipshod. I just like following recipes.

I throw scrag ends of leek into the bin and lean against the jamb of the French doors. I inhale the scent of parched soil, and watch Matt tidying the borders of our London garden. He calls it a window box on steroids. In our marital ecosystem, Matt is head gardener, my glossy-haired Mellors. Watching him do practical things makes my arms tingle. His tongue peeps out when he does manual tasks. Weeding, he has his back to me, its broad sweep lightly brown. Matt only has to stick his head out the window to tan a mellow shade of butterscotch. I want to go to him and place a kiss on his neck, to drink of his sweetness. Just then Matt turns and, leaning into the trowel, displays one of his warm smiles. These never fail to delight me, for when Matt smiles grooves appear on either side of his mouth, elegant punctuation marks drawing attention to something significant. From the moment Dylan introduced us, I was aware of Matt's enviable warm spirit; with smiles so benevolent, they appeared to offer redemption.

‘What time are we expecting the Pol Roger Padre?' Matt grins.

‘The usual – the minute you uncork the wine!'

The last of the sun grazes the top of the garden wall. Its colour reminds me of the carrot purée I've made in case Dylan's on one of his short-lived food-elimination regimes.

‘Everything in the kitchen under control?' Matt asks, getting up. His right knee creaks.

‘Of course,' I say.

‘Dad and Audrey having their siesta?'

I grin. ‘Yes.'

‘Only, I was thinking of getting out of these,' he pulls off his gardening gloves, ‘and having a quick shower.' He wears that smile which is like chewing toffee.

I lead him inside.

Chapter Two

D
YLAN AND
D
AVID
arrive for supper with two cats – the unnamed runts of a litter dropped by David's daughter's pet. It takes me a while to get my head around all this, but what with a risotto, the purée, a jar of Audrey's home-made chutney and a ripe Epoisse which I can't eat but whose ribald smell is sufficient compensation, there is ample time to hear the story of what Dylan calls David's ‘road to Damascus'.

And, as David describes how he'd always suspected he was homosexual (enunciating all five vowel sounds, clearly relishing saying the word aloud), and how marriage to flame-haired Caryl only reinforced his suspicions, I find myself thinking about how our lives are changed by the choices we make, and how brave you'd have to be to have a change of heart.

Like my dad leaving my mother. I watch him help Audrey to some cheese, his gnarled hand firm on the knife, the blue veins standing proud from the pressure. I can almost feel his potter's grip from when he used to wrap me in a towel at bathtime. I collect the pudding bowls from the cupboard and, as I set them down, see that he and Audrey are holding hands under the table.

*

Somehow, we end up keeping the cats. David intended them as child substitutes for his broody lover, and brought them to dinner
en route
to staying the night at what Dylan likes to call, with no little irony, his vicar-cage. After coffee, and having been banned from doing the washing up, Dad and Audrey have gone to bed. Dylan sits at the grand piano: a present from Matt to me when he was made a consultant. Its glossy lid is home to framed photos – two dozen or more: our wedding, a skiing trip, parties, christenings. I have my hair up. I have a bob. I have stick-on flicks. I have a henna rinse. I am blonde. I'm with friends; I'm holding their babies. Matt is kissing me.

Dylan is playing the piano. A female ball of fur and bones has commandeered his lap. Dylan is running through the songs to a Stephen Sondheim musical he hopes to stage to raise money to repair his church roof. His mother, Pamela, is threatening to audition. The male cat jumps off David's knees, and saunters into a piano leg.

‘That cat's got Amber's sense of direction!' guffaws Matt.

‘Better that', I snap, ‘than that he has your sense of humour.' Matt rises to close the front shutters and plants a noisy kiss on my head as he passes.

‘You guys!' says David, whose hair reminds me of a startled grey mammal. I watch him flick cat fur from his combat trousers.
Let's hope it doesn't fly up and get caught in the braces on his teeth
. When I stop my silent bitch-fest, I realise that Dylan has been making up a song about the cats, which he has christened Tim and Tallulah.

‘Keep them!' cries Dylan, thudding a final chord before swivelling round on the stool.

‘Now I know how Mary must have felt before the Angel Gabriel,' says Matt, solemnly.

My insides curdle.
Has Matt changed his mind about having children?
‘Don't be daft, Dylan,' I say quickly.

‘Why not? I'm running a retreat in a couple of days' time, so, as much as David wants me to have them—'

‘Don't be daft,' I repeat, buying time for Matt to ride to my rescue, slay this evil offer and keep our pairing intact. As a psychiatrist, he's rigid on boundaries. Apparently patients hate his professional neutrality, and attempt all manner of personal intrusions. They quiz him, wanting him as their special friend, their surrogate parent. And Matt smiles (at least I always picture him in his office smiling, since he's always smiling at me), and scribbles a note or two on a pad. Then he wonders aloud why they want to know. This annoys them intensely, which makes for more notes, more smiles.

‘Sounds like a great idea,' says Matt.

I glare at my husband. ‘Are they house-trained?' I ask, as if remotely interested.

‘They're barely five weeks old.'

‘Dylan tells me you've decided not to have kids—' I note the way David slips this in, as if to say,
Dylan's told me everything about you
‘— so you won't have to worry about small hands accidentally shutting them in the washing machine.'

‘It's not
their
welfare I'm worried about,' I snap.

‘And they do so match your Farrow & Ball paintwork,' he adds, raising an eyebrow. I meet his look with one of my own, as a nickname for him, ‘Camp David', takes up residence in my head.

Matt is on his haunches by the fireplace. One kitten is on its hind legs, tugging with its front paws at Matt's sleeve; the other is being tickled, eyes half-closed in apparent ecstasy. A parent playing with the children. I feel a sharp stitch in my left side. ‘Dyl, why me?'

‘Because we're like family, you and me. Friends are the new family—'

‘Like white is the new black,' smirks David. I want to slug him.

‘And they're sooooo adorable,' says Dylan, watching Matt and the cats.

‘So,
you
have them, Dyl—' Then I stop, realising in that moment that all three men are now looking at me in a particularly complicit way. My chest feels tight. I rub my collarbone.

‘All right,' I say with a sigh. ‘But only until you're back from your retreat.' I watch as Matt rises to close the French windows. ‘Then you must have them. You're the broody one around here.'

David taps his watch and reminds Dylan of his eight o'clock Communion tomorrow morning. He goes out to his car and returns with a cardboard box, which contains all the paraphernalia novice parents of juvenile cats need for those crucial first nights at home. Dylan is hunching on his jacket. Watching him flick his Pre- Raphaelite curls out from under the collar, a sudden rush of feeling floods my body. His eyes are red and watery, as if leaving the cats behind constitutes a loss of insurmountable proportions.

There is a pause. David, hovering by the car, clears his throat. I have this fleeting sense, perhaps incorrect, that David is prompting Dylan, that he's taking control.

Dylan looks at me again, and this time his squeeze at the tops of my arms is just a little too sharp. ‘Darling, I meant to tell you earlier. David and I, we're thinking of adopting.'

Chapter Three

I
AM STANDING
in bare feet, gripping the basin in one hand. With the other I pull at strands of blonde hair along my parting – I do not need to use the bathroom mirror in front of me. My fingers detect subtle textural differences, dropping those that feel too smooth, too regular, gently tugging until one strand remains between thumb and middle finger, a strand slightly thicker than all the rest, and therefore from experience more likely to be a darker shade, a strand punctuated by coarse ridges suggesting the beginnings of a fracture, a place of weakness. Prepubescent cats for a week I can just about cope with. I pull, absorbed in the friction between my fingers, skimming the bumps, soothed by the monotony. Dylan, actively gay and my oldest friend, suddenly (
Yes! All right, Matt, not over-night, but you know what I mean
) acquiring a lifetime commitment to children he'll raise as his own is altogether different. I take the shaft of hair in my left hand, inching my way along it with my right, scoring it with my thumbnail, enjoying the resistance between hair cuticle and finger, making the hair curl like scissors scrolling ribbon for a parcel. If I increase the pressure just slightly, I'll hear the hair snap at its point of tension, split ends feathering into existence.

Instead, tonight I pull the strand right out of my scalp. I feel the root tear from its follicle, feel the small bead of pain, see the bulb's creamy globule of oil wobble in the air as I exhale. The planes of my face in the mirror are harsh yet strangely passive, my untugged hair flat and closely cropped (I am going through a vague Mia Farrow phase). I am aware of a fierce ache in my upper arms.

Chapter Four

‘I
DON'T
KNOW WHY
you're worrying, yaar,' sighs Nicole, easing a column of chocolate hair over her shoulder. ‘Dylan's gay. He'll never be approved.'

I stop tipping my chair, and watch my colleague drink her first iced coffee of Monday morning. Such breaks are rare. We work hard, as headhunters, recruiting to fill senior corporate vacancies. It's not exactly rocket science, but I've got the knack of helping people fit together. Pity I had no joy with my parents.

I've decided this morning to confide in Nicole – hence the caffeine break. Nicole and I are the only female partners in the firm. We wear linen trouser suits and hide our laptops in grosgrain handbags, which sit at our feet like spaniels.

‘What do you mean,
approved
?'

‘Well, adoption agencies are very picky.' Nicole's voice, as much as her sentiment, soothes me. Her New Delhi lilt always sounds intelligent and precise; it makes me believe her implicitly. ‘They prefer you to be under thirty. Which Dylan, like us, is not. And married, which Dylan could claim to be, but only to a higher being.' Nicole sips her drink through beautiful, cushioned lips. ‘And you must be deemed sensible, na, which Dylan most definitely hasn't been since he tried to become treasurer of the College Boat Club—'