Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman

my head, and she wailed, like a child, ‘It’s so unfair.’

With a mighty beat of my excellent wings, I soared up into the sky, which had replaced the bedroom ceiling. Far below, Minty’s wet, upturned face was as flat and featureless as a swamp.

‘Rose…’

Nathan was bending over me and I blinked. My tongue had turned into felt, and my lips were so cracked that I tasted blood, and it seemed to be evening. ‘What are you doing here, Nathan?’

‘You look awful.’ His eye lit on the thermometer by the bed. ‘Here, stick this in.’

I tried to raise my head. ‘Can’t.’

He took a step back. Nathan was one of those men who hated anyone to be ill except himself, and he was never at his best in these situations – ‘You’re not that bad,’ he would protest, if I dared to mention that I was not feeling up to scratch, and assume his suffering expression. For a day or two, there were sighs and looks that meant, I am carrying this family entirely on my shoulders. Pretty soon after that, he developed identical symptoms, which were worse, much worse than yours, Rosie. As a result, I rarely took to my bed. Anyway, mothers do not have time to be ill.

‘We’re on our way to dinner with Timon and I thought I’d just check as I’ve been ringing and ringing.’

‘I’ve been ill,’ I pointed out helpfully.

‘Hang on,’ he said. ‘I’d better get some help.’ He disappeared and, a few minutes later, reappeared with Minty.

I was too weak to feel rage, too distanced to care that she was there. They conferred in the doorway… temperature… awful… doctor. Minty shifted from foot to foot and threw me pointed glances from those slanting eyes.

I made a huge effort. ‘Nathan, could you get me some water?’

It was always a smart move to give a Nathan a task. It settled him.

While he was gone, Minty maintained her distance. ‘I wasn’t going to come in,’ she confessed. ‘Nathan made me. But I wouldn’t have done…’

I closed my eyes. ‘I don’t care what you do.’

She was silent. I opened my eyes. She was examining the room – a glimpse of Nathan’s remaining clothes through the partially open door of the cupboard, a photo of Sam and Poppy, taken in a rare moment when they were enjoying each other’s company, a stack of books on Nathan’s side of the bed. There was a hungry, siphoning look on her face, and I knew she was trawling for the clues she needed to understand Nathan.

It was then I realized how deadly intent on Nathan she was, how elated by the task of making it work but also secretly terrified at how little she knew.

I could not blame her for wanting Nathan. How could I? I wanted him too.

But this was the Minty who had said, ‘Commitment? Don’t make me laugh.’

She must have read my mind. ‘People do change, Rose, particularly if someone like Nathan is involved.’ She fussed with her jumper, a low-cut blue mohair that only just reached her waist. Every time she moved a little flesh was revealed. You can look at me, she was saying, my beauty and ripeness, and you may envy and desire. ‘I’m twenty-nine,’ she said, in a wondering voice.

With a huge effort, I turned on my side and blotted out the sight of her.

‘You’re very thin.’ She bent over and smoothed the damp sheets with a proprietorial gesture. ‘You should take more care of yourself.’

I was almost choked by fever and hatred. ‘If you have any shred of compassion, go.’

Her heels clip-clopped down the passage, leaving me to reflect tiredly on the objectives that Minty had once professed to despise. Years of marriage – the sporadic wars, ententes and a deep, protective peace. Nathan had married a girl in jeans who turned into a mother, who turned into a career woman who wore trouser suits, carried a book bag and read office memos. From time to time, this woman had congratulated herself on juggling these various states and emerging sane and optimistic.

Quite soon after our marriage, Nathan had abandoned the safari jacket for double-breasted office suits, the trouser buttons gradually let out. Some days he arrived home whistling under his breath, a sign that he felt happy and confident in his decisions. On others, I caught him staring out of his study window as he puzzled over problems. Sometimes he worried about money and we made lists of how to economize. A few of those were still stuck up on the fridge with magnets, turning yellow. In the summer, he sat in a chair in the garden and watched me at work. In winter, he begged me to make shepherd’s pie and chocolate pudding. To keep me going, Rosie. (More letting out of waistbands.) We ate at the table in the kitchen, discussed our children, discussed our ambitions. As the children grew up, we had more energy, talked less of domestic matters and more of politics, newspapers and the troubled state of the world – a regular airing of each other’s mental geography, which had seemed right, natural and happy.

‘Here we are. I’ve made some toast, and got you some aspirins.’ Nathan set down a jug on the bedside table. ‘Should I feed Parsley?’

The mention of her name brought instant tears. Nathan knelt down beside the bed. ‘Rosie, what is it? Are you in pain?’

I told him and he said, ‘Poor old Parsley,’ and stroked my cheek.

‘Will you do something for me?’

‘If I can.’

‘Brush my hair. It feels dreadful.’

Nathan reached for the hairbrush, propped me up and settled me back against his shoulder. The bristles scraped through hair as lank as tow. ‘She had a good innings, Rosie.’

I wiped my face with the sheet. ‘That makes it worse. I assumed she’d be around for ever.’

‘Do you remember when she went missing and I found her in that strange house, the one with the creeper growing over the windows?’

‘I found her,’ I murmured. ‘You were at work.’

‘No, it was me.’ He paused. ‘You’re pinching my memories.’

I twisted my head to look up at him. ‘So I am. But you pinch mine.’

He bent over and his cheek rested against mine. ‘So I do.’

‘Nathan?’ Minty called from downstairs. Nathan stopping brushing but I allowed myself to relax against his shoulder.

‘Nathan…’ Minty materialized at the door, and the dark eyes narrowed angrily. Perhaps she was looking through a tunnel to the light at the end, which shone on the past, against which she must compete. ‘Nathan, we’ll be late for Timon.’ As she turned to go, the blue jumper rode up over the taut stomach.

Instantly Nathan disengaged himself and stood up, my tall, driven, ambitious husband, who knew what he wanted, who until this point had been sane and predictable. I turned away my face because I could not bear to see the change in him.

‘Coming,’ he said.

Chapter Fourteen

It took me a little time to get back on my feet. Not only was I weak but, without the routines of work and play, the days felt soft-set, like underdone eggs. I was used to them being quite different, all neatly stacked up and filed.

The garden told me that summer was here: a languid seraglio, swooning with scent and covered in foaming, lacy white. When I felt up to it, I pushed open the french windows and stepped outside. I knew it so well. Each brick in the wall. The hole in the lawn dug by the squirrel. The intersection where the fence had rotted. When the children were small they had demanded grass to play football and French cricket on, but as they grew older, like the Dutchman claiming the polders, I snatched back my flowerbeds.

The olive in its pot was sway-backed and grey-green. It meant peace. It meant home. It meant green oil smelling of thyme and marjoram into which to dip a crust of bread. It meant good things.

Hal had given me the olive after our second expedition together, walking through the Mani peninsula. Thin,