Half Broken Things

the others were or what they were doing. She might hear a distant, mechanical cough and then the whine of the saw, and she would know that Michael was cutting logs at the woodpile behind the far wall of the vegetable garden. She would know that he was breathing in the smell of resin and the faint warm stew of the compost heap a few yards away. Sawdust would be flying in the air around him, and he would look up from time to time and see the world streaked and skewed by the plastic safety goggles, which would be making his face sweat. She might hear the chug of the mower, or the clack of the ladders against a wall and the rustle and snap as he pruned the climbers. From the other side of the house she might hear Steph at the pool chanting a counting game with Charlie, dunking and lifting him in and out of the water, or pulling him about with a lulling sing-song, as he perched, with her hands supporting him, on a massive, duck-shaped float.

Or there might be a very particular silence from the white plastic loungers (another purchase from the garden centre) on the grass in front of the kitchen windows. At such times Steph might be drawing something. She would only draw things she could see, a detail of the roof, a lavender bush, sometimes even an impromptu still life of whatever was to hand: an apple core, sun cream tube, sandal, or empty glass. But most often, she would draw Charlie. She filled page after page with silvery pencilled lines out of which emerged his little buds of toes, the coiled ends of hair slipping behind one ear, his closed eyes, the warm cheeks bulged in sleep, the fanning fingers and pink scoops of fingernails. Sometimes Jean would peep out of the window and see that Steph was dozing along with him, her drawing pad collapsed and pressed against her chest. Then, not wanting to disturb them, Jean would think to herself that it would make no difference if she vacuumed the kitchen tomorrow instead of this minute, or if she blended the herbs and nuts for pesto later on (she had gone from Larousse to the River Cafй by this time).

Sometimes she would hear Michael and Steph going about something together, talking in a continual, contented banter about the score of a croquet game, the amount of fruit to be picked, how slowly Steph read, how fast Michael did. Even, once, she heard them arguing gently about which one of them Charlie resembled more, stopping just short of actually using the words takes after. And then there were the shrieks, the calling out, the yelling from one end of the place to the other when one of them wanted the others for something, doors opening and closing, footsteps.

‘We make more noise,’ she said, ‘if that’s what you mean. Because we go about things just as we like. As if nobody is ever going to mind,’ she said, smiling at Charlie.

‘And nobody is,’ Michael said, as if his point had been proved.

‘Oh, by the way,’ Steph said, ‘Charlie’s staying the night.’

She had been waiting to tell them this, and now looked round with shining eyes. It was great fun, being able to tell people something that was going to make them pleased with her. She had never realised. ‘Aren’t you, little Charlie-arlie, little Charlie’s going to sleepy-byes in his cot, going to stay all night and be a good baby, aren’t you, Charlie?’ she crooned at him, drawing out both her pleasure and their surprise. ‘Sally’s got a boyfriend,’ she said. ‘She met him at work, he’s a lawyer as well, in her firm, he joined when she was on maternity leave. She goes on about it all the time. Philip. He’s younger than her. And she doesn’t know if she should tell her husband about him or not, she sort of wants to. I said she should wait a bit.’

She looked up at them importantly. ‘Anyway, the thing is she asked me to baby-sit. Ages ago. She’s asked me loads of times and I kept saying I couldn’t, so she got somebody else from the village, only tonight they’ve cancelled. So this morning she’s all desperate and I said I’d do it but it’d be better if we just kept him here instead of me taking him back for six o’clock and baby-sitting him there, better for her so she’s got lots of time to get ready, and he can sleep over here so she won’t have to worry about getting back afterwards or anything. ‘And,’ she smiled again, ’cause it’s a Friday, I said we might as well have him tomorrow so she can have a Saturday to herself for a change, we’ll keep him till six. So we’ve got him nearly a whole weekend.’

‘Are you sure she doesn’t mind?’ Jean asked. ‘She doesn’t see much of him in the week, are you sure she doesn’t mind us having him on a Saturday?’

‘If you ask me,’ Steph said with a knowing snort, ‘she’s dead pleased. She keeps asking if I think she’s lost the baby weight. And the other day she asked if it was true a man can tell when a woman’s given birth. If he could… you know… feel anything.’

‘Really!’ Jean exclaimed. She wanted to sound as if she were only pretending to be shocked but in fact she was, a little.

‘I said, as if I should know!’

‘What’s that got to do with you baby-sitting?’ Michael asked, wondering about the answer to Sally’s question and promising himself he would think about it properly another time.

Steph looked witheringly at him. ‘S’obvious. She’s obviously planning on bringing the boyfriend back tonight, isn’t she? If Charlie’s away she can shag him all night, can’t she? And probably all day tomorrow as well.’

‘Really!’ Michael cried, mimicking Jean. ‘Really, Stephanie! How can you use that word in front of Charles!’

‘Shagging? But that’s exactly what she’d say!’ Steph told them, laughing again, this time louder.

* * *

It was not exactly what Sally said. But she did say that it had been a treat having Charlie out of the house overnight. ‘Because if anything, Steph, since I’ve been back at work he’s been even worse at night. He’s still waking for a feed and he’s gone bloody backwards with the bottle, I’m up for hours with him. Don’t you think he’s gone backwards? Don’t tell me he takes the bottle for you.’

‘Well… you know, he might just be playing you up a bit. You know, just for the attention?’

‘Oh, don’t you start making me feel guilty! Bloody hell, I’ve got to earn a living, haven’t I? Aren’t I entitled to some fun and a bit of time to myself?’

‘Of course you are! I didn’t mean that. We’re happy to have him. I mean, we haven’t got your sort of pressure, have we? It’s easier for us. In fact my aunt says he’s ever so welcome to come again next weekend. Then you could have another peaceful night, couldn’t you?’

Sally accepted the offer. And on the weekend following that, Charlie was allowed to stay away for two nights, and after that it became the norm that on a Thursday morning Sally would kiss him goodbye and not see him again until Saturday evening. She made a point of saying that she was not enjoying herself, not entirely.

‘They’re chucking work at me like it’s going out of fashion,’ she told Steph. ‘If you ask me they’re trying it on- can she or can’t she cope with it now she’s got a baby, oh, they want to think it can’t be done. They’re waiting to see if I’ll go under, well, I’m buggered if I will. I can work all Thursday night if you’ve got Charlie, can’t I? I mean, if I wasn’t a single parent I’d have somebody to help me handle Charlie in the evenings, wouldn’t I? All I’m getting is what millions of people get. And if you’ve got him Friday as well, that gives me a bit of time with Philip, and I don’t see what’s so bloody unreasonable about having a bit of fun, do you?’

‘Of course it’s not unreasonable,’ Steph said, smoothly. ‘Charlie’s perfectly happy and that’s the main thing, isn’t it?’

‘Of course! There’s no reason to feel guilty about it and you know what? I don’t. People don’t understand that. I mean you should hear Charlie’s granddad- he was on the phone again, when am I going out to Nepal, when is Charlie getting christened, et bloody cetera. Christ!’

As Sally grew happier her house became even more untidy and the range of things left lying around widened. It now included many more pieces of makeup, sometimes squashed into lardy pink lumps on the floors or tabletop, wine bottles and theatre programmes, matchbooks from restaurants, a couple of books on hot air ballooning (Philip’s hobby) and, once, an unworn pair of black stockings that had been, as Sally explained to Steph, ‘ripped to buggery’ on their way out of the packet. Steph would clear up these things into prim little heaps that made Sally laugh.

At the end of June there was to be a hot air balloon festival near Deauville. Sally informed Steph, in what sounded like a prepared statement, that Philip had been very generous about Sundays, quite prepared to share them with a six-month-old baby who was not even his. He complained about it really very little, especially when, it should be remembered, Philip was five years younger than Sally and had no ambitions yet to be a father himself. So it seemed to Sally quite reasonable that he should now make it clear, of course in a gentle way, that he wanted