Pandora’s Box

‘If you’re thinking of him as a potential partner for me, darling, I thought you knew, he doesn’t swing that way.’

Annie-Jo laughs dismissively as if this is just a tinyweeny little blot on the horizon; some minor irritating male habit that any good woman could train him out of.

‘Last I heard, he’d broken up with his partner—Adam, was it? Maybe he’s not gay after all? It does happen, you know. Sometimes the right woman comes along…’

‘No,’ I laugh at her. ‘No, no, no!’

‘He’s got his own successful antiques business,’ she carries on regardless, ‘he’s delightful. He clearly likes your children. And he likes you. Maybe more than just a bit?’

‘Such a pity I don’t fancy him, though.’

‘Fancying is a luxury afforded only to teenagers and rich women!’ Annie-Jo scoffs. ‘You’re forty-two now, Rach. If you don’t want to be stuck on your own forever you’ve got to start getting realistic. Take what’s available, if you catch my drift.’

Whatever makes her think that Sol might be available? He might have broken off with Adam (‘He’s getting so old, Rach, he’s really let himself go!’) but now he is besotted with Justin. Hell, I’m not even going there.

‘That smacks of desperation, my dear, and I’m not desperate.’

Whatever has brought that on, I wonder? I’m not even looking for a man. All I ever think about are the children, especially Shelley, she takes up all the space in my thoughts.

She is dying, how can it be otherwise?

‘How’re you and Bryan doing?’ I glance surreptitiously at Annie-Jo’s belly as she perches on the low garden wall. It is as flat as ever, but that’s just Annie-Jo; she could be six months gone but she’d keep her figure to the last.

‘Doing great. Just great.’ Annie-Jo smiles. Her right foot is swinging languidly, crossed over her left leg. ‘A little tired, that’s all.’

‘I thought you were looking a little tired,’ I prompt. Is she going to ’fess up here?

‘His mother’s just downsized and we’ve inherited all her antique rosewood furniture. It’s Japanese. Very rare. Absolutely gorgeous, but I’ve had to redecorate and rethink the entire lounge to make it fit.’ She pulls a ‘this is so tedious’ face but I know underneath she is thrilled. Being hooked into someone like Bryan means she can inherit the kind of things she once would only have dreamed of.

‘Wow!’ I enthuse. I’m just hoping that the growing sensation of envy I’m feeling isn’t showing in any way. Annie-Jo gets to inherit antique Japanese furniture. I get Pandora’s bloody box. But I don’t want to be envious. Envy is one of the Spites, isn’t it? Pandora’s box is working overtime here.

No, I’m happy for my friend, of course I’m happy…it’s not that I even want any more babies or to get married again. I mean, okay, once upon a time I did. Bill and I were actually discussing the possibility of going for a third child when all Shelley’s troubles appeared, and, like a tropical storm, blew our whole lives away.

Anyway, maybe it’s just as well that never happened because I’ve got too much on my plate now as it is. I just want…hell, I’m not sure what I want. I want a miracle to happen and for Shelley to be well. If you live in hope of a miracle then it doesn’t seem fair to hope for ordinary things like a normal life as well.

‘And of course, Bryan’s just got the Risling contract. I mentioned that, didn’t I? He’s taking us to Barbados in fact, in a couple of weeks. He says he’d like to celebrate it in style.’

‘Wow.’ What else can I say? I’m dying to ask if the Risling contract is all they are celebrating, but if she isn’t telling then I’m not asking. I cast my mind back to the day, eleven years ago now, that I’d driven her down to the chemist for a pregnancy test when she was expecting Josh because she’d been too frightened to do it by herself. I don’t know if she’s thinking about the same thing herself, or whether she’s thinking about anything very much at all. Her gaze spreads out over the garden, back to examine her nails and then to some non-existent specks of fluff on her skirt.

‘Sounds great,’ I enthuse, but she doesn’t elaborate. We both fall silent for a bit after that. Is she bored?. Maybe it is me? I don’t have much to talk about these days that comes within her sphere of interest, that is the problem. What is she interested in, though? She has Bryan, and they have an idyllic lifestyle. They always seem so besotted with each other. I wish she and I could just talk to each other, the way we used to. We used to be able to talk about anything. I remember the time she thought her fella of the moment was seeing someone else and I’d ventured to tell her that I thought maybe Bill was seeing someone too. Because he’d become all withdrawn and defensive. I’d only said it to make her feel better. I hadn’t known then that Bill really was seeing someone else. I had never even imagined it could really be true, but afterwards Annie-Jo had been convinced that I’d ‘sensed it all along’. For ages, she’d been the only person who’d known about it, till he moved out and the cat was out of the bag. ‘So…things still as good between the two of you?’

‘Of course!’ She’s been biting her nails and she stops abruptly. I remember A-J used to be an inveterate nail-biter but she obviously doesn’t do that, these days, and gives me a dazzling smile. ‘Bryan is all I ever wanted in a man. I just hope that one day you find the happiness that I have,’ she tells me solicitously.

‘You’ve been lucky,’ I tell her, and I push down the bitterness that surfaces suddenly and forcefully from nowhere. A man in my life would be great; maybe, one of these days.

Just at this moment I would settle for far less, though, just the friendship of an old, long-time friend. The kind of friend that takes on board your troubles, wherever you’re at in your life at the time. We used to be like that. I remember the time Annie-Jo had been so fraught and sleep-deprived that she’d taken her daughter out to the shopping mall in her pushchair and left her there, outside Mothercare. I hadn’t believed her at first but when she didn’t produce Michelle I’d got straight in the car and gone down there myself. Lo and behold, the child had still been there; fast asleep in her buggy. I’d suffered the few dirty looks I’d got from onlookers in silence as I’d wheeled her quickly away. I wondered if Annie-Jo remembered any of that now; the way we used to be.

I want the old Annie-Jo back, but she isn’t the old Annie-Jo and I’m not the Rachel I used to be when I was ‘Rachel-and-Bill’, either. Whatever happened to us?

‘The boys will be all right up there, will they?’ She glances towards the treehouse, which is a super-duper all-singing all-dancing one with bells on, typical of Sol. Of course they’ll be all right. Annie-Jo never used to fret about Josh either. It was me who was the fretting type. These days I’ve realised we actually have control over so very little in our lives, I just coast along as best I can.

‘They’re going on scout camp, aren’t they?’ I remind her. ‘They’ll have to put up their own tents and grill their own sausages.’

‘Ah yes, that reminds me.’ She turns at last and is following me into the house. ‘You have to pay the remainder of camp monies owing before next week. Arkaela needs the money before Thursday.’

Shit, I’d forgotten. I didn’t like to ask Bill to help out but I was going to have to; it was either that or the gas bill would get put off again.

‘Fine.’ I wave a nonchalant hand at her. I know that one hundred and fifty pounds is precisely nothing for Annie-Jo these days; I don’t want her to guess what hardship it is for me. It is stupid pride on my part, I know. When Annie-Jo was in her bedsit days I couldn’t count the times Bill and I helped her out with food and nappies and things. We never had much either, but we had so much more than she did. She’d probably help me out too if I let her.

I turn away, so I don’t have to catch that hint of detached pity in her eyes.

‘I’ve got the money,’ I tell her, ‘I just forgot.’

‘Well it’s hardly any wonder.’ She follows me through the lounge into the kitchen. ‘You’ve just had that fabulous treehouse put up; Daniel was telling us all about it on the way here. It must have taken a while to do. And workmen about the place can be so distracting.’ She nods towards the boys in their den. We can see the treehouse quite easily from the kitchen table and she doesn’t take her eyes off it. ‘That must have cost you an arm and a leg.’ She glances at me sideways. ‘Unless Bill did it for his elder son?’

‘Not Bill.’ I shake my head.

‘No?’ She sips at the tea I put in front of her. No sugar these days, I’ve remembered that. ‘Mind you, he wouldn’t have too much time on his hands as I hear. Things being what they are at home.’

This is Annie-Jo in her incarnation as gossip queen. It’s what they do at the Maidstone ‘Domestic Goddess’ meetings when they’ve done with other matters. It’s taken her off the scent of who put up the treehouse for me, though, so I’m grateful for that.

‘How are things at Bill’s home?’ I smile at her.

‘Fraught, I hear.’ She gets the gen from her sister-in-law who goes to the same NCT group as Stella. Annie-Jo still thinks I want to hear all the gossip about Bill. I used to, five years ago when we’d first split and it was still rankling that I was the one left on my own while he’d moved on and found someone else. I don’t any more.

‘Poor things.’ I sidle over to the sink and give my hands a good rinsing under the tap while she stares out over the garden as if the boys might disappear any minute. ‘Nikolai isn’t letting them get much sleep, I hear.’

Annie-Jo gives me a significant look, but her lips remain firmly pressed together. Is she remembering the ‘pram in the mall’ incident or is she thinking about something else altogether?

I am resisting the temptation to ask when Shelley suddenly wheels herself in the kitchen. She wants to back out straight away, I can tell by the look on her face, but she’s been spotted so she can’t.

‘Aunt Annie-Jo! Hi. How’s Mickey?’

‘Michelle is…she’s doing great, Shelley.’ Annie-Jo averts her eyes. She sounds embarrassed. ‘She said to say “Hi” and she’ll come over and see you very soon.’

‘It’s been a while.’ Shelley’s eyes narrow. She hasn’t missed that Annie-Jo is practically squirming and neither have I. ‘Did she get my birthday card?’

‘I’m sure she did.’ Annie-Jo is looking vague again. ‘Thank you so much for that, dear.’

‘Did they have a good time?’ Shelley wheels over to the fridge to pour herself some milk. ‘At Mickey’s birth day meal, I mean. I heard they went to some lovely restaurant?’

‘Oh, yes, thank you, dear!’ Annie-Jo clears her throat. ‘She had a lovely time, thank you. She thought you…maybe wouldn’t…with the wheelchair, I mean, as you can’t dance…’ She takes a great gulp of her tea and uncrosses her legs. ‘I suppose I really should be making a move, though. I’ll tell Michelle you asked after her.’

I’ve got the strangest feeling, like I’ve gone pink right up to my ears. The girls had been going to each other’s parties since they were one. I have whole albums full of their party pictures. They spent years doing horse-riding and ballet together and then, later, when Shelley got ill and became too weak for all that they used to go round each other’s homes and do things that Shelley could do, playing board games and sewing, listening to music. I know they haven’t been as close for some time, like Annie-Jo and me they’ve drifted apart, but I didn’t realise things had got this bad. Why hadn’t Michelle asked Shelley to her party this year? Annie-Jo is clearly embarrassed about it. I want to ask but something stops me…they will have their reasons. There will be some excuse. It is too late now, whatever the reason is.

‘Look, I’ll give you a ring about lunch next week, okay?’ Annie-Jo has picked up her keys and is rapping on the kitchen window to draw Josh’s attention.

Sod lunch. She can stuff it.

‘I’ve got a feeling we might have some work for you if you do come. Do you still do that calligraphy? It’s a shame, really. What with your qualifications in the fine arts and so forth. You even got a diploma, didn’t you?’

I shove both our teacups into the sink. A degree, actually! I got a degree. But I am so steaming that I don’t even want to answer her.

‘You always said you’d like to use that professionally didn’t you? I remember that. And calligraphy was something you always wanted to do.’

No I bloody didn’t! Whatever makes you say that? I think. I never wanted to do calligraphy professionally. It calls for a degree of perfectionism and skill that, yes, I can muster, but it nearly kills me. I’d far sooner be slapping paint randomly over a huge canvas. In fact, what I really wanted to do, the only thing I ever really wanted, was to design and make my own jewellery. I haven’t told many people in my life about that particular ambition—even Shelley doesn’t know—but I know for a fact that I shared it with A-J. Even now I can see us, sprawled in front of the kids on the swings in the park, and scheming, the way mums do, about what we were going to do with our lives once we’d regained some measure of freedom again. I was going to design this fashion jewellery line, and A-J was going to be my model and dazzle everybody showing off my pieces on the catwalk.

It was a pipe dream. We never did anything about it, of course. We never got the chance. But she knew damn well that I never wanted to be a calligrapher!

‘Yes, Mum does the most beautiful calligraphy.’ Shelley jumps in and answers for me and I am so surprised that I say nothing. ‘What’s the work?’

‘Invitations. We’ve got a big “Domestic Goddess” do coming up in the summer and we want someone who can do the invites professionally. The woman who used to do it has just moved and we usually use one of our own for any little jobs.’ Annie-Jo looks at me encouragingly. ‘So you see, it might be worth your while joining us. There is quite a bit of this kind of work over the course of a year.’

‘She’ll think about it,’ Shelley puts in for me again. ‘Thanks for the offer, Aunt Annie-Jo.’

‘Thanks for the tea, Rachel. It’s been so nice to talk to you again. We’ll have to organise to get together just you and me sometime. We’ll do it next week, when you come to lunch.’

‘Sure.’ I keep washing up the cups and I don’t see her to the door. I feel stung to the core about Shelley not getting a birthday invite, even if it is stupid of me.

The door shuts behind her at last. The atmosphere in the kitchen is thick with my unspoken resentment. It isn’t me that she’s hurt, I could cope with that. I just can’t bear that she did that to Shelley, my Shelley, who has such little time, so few parties left to go to. Why had they done that?

‘It’s all right, Mum.’ My daughter has seen my guest out and chivvied Daniel up the stairs to get out of his scout uniform. ‘I don’t mind. I really don’t. You don’t have to be so hurt on my behalf. Michelle and I haven’t been close for months.’

‘That’s not the point, though, is it?’ My throat is tight. I’m not really sure what the point is, but this feeling of rejection has cut me to the quick so I go back to the sink to wash up all the bits and bobs of cups and teaspoons and plates that gather during the course of the day. Outside it has grown dark all of a sudden. There is a wind stirring up the leaves in the garden and I have a feeling that tomorrow it will be quite cold.

‘If she can get you some calligraphy work then you should go to the lunch. She might prove a useful contact for you.’

If Shelley feels rejected at all then she really isn’t showing it. And maybe she is right. Maybe I should think of Annie-Jo as a contact if I can’t think of her as a friend any more.

‘She’s still your friend,’ my daughter reads my thoughts in that uncanny way that she has, ‘she’s just a different kind of friend than you are.’

‘A disloyal one, you mean?’

‘Mum,’ Shelley laughs, ‘compared to you the whole world is traitorous and harsh!’

‘What on earth do you mean?’ I look at Shelley in astonishment. Daniel has just bounded into the kitchen and he’s ravenous as usual. His look of disappointment that there is nothing cooking on the hob is a picture.

‘I mean that there is no one on this planet who is as good and true a person as you. You are the best mum in the world.’

Disloyalty, I think. That’s what this is all about, really. I feel let down. I feel trampled over. Disregarded.

‘I always thought of her as a friend.’ I give Shelley a lopsided attempt at a grin. ‘There we go. No sooner do I open Pandora’s box than all the Miseries start flying out at me.’

If there is one person I would have laid money on remaining loyal to us, it would have been Annie-Jo.

‘Not, of course, that there is any connection whatsoever between Annie-Jo becoming a turncoat and Pandora’s box of old junk arriving at our door…’ Shelley reminds me.

‘No. None at all,’ I concede.

‘What’s a turncoat?’ Danny looks from one of us to the other and his face seems worried. ‘And what do you mean, Pandora’s box makes miseries shoot out at you, Mum? Is there something inside Granny’s box? Like—like germs, you mean?’

‘Mum was making a joke, dunderhead. No germs in there. No miseries. Nothing. It’s just that Mum’s a bit sad because A-J, well, she doesn’t appreciate that our mum’s the best.’

‘Mum’s the best,’ Daniel echoes his sister, and I pull a face and go to rummage in the fridge. If I am quick enough maybe I can pretend that these tears welling in my eyes are just the onions?

‘Did you get to speak to Dad yet?’ Shelley speaks softly to me, peeling the garlic in the corner. ‘About the trip?’

‘I’ve left a couple of messages. I’ll get on to him tomorrow, definitely.’ I don’t add that he’s already got back to me this morning with a resounding ‘No!’

‘What if he says no?’

‘I won’t take no for an answer,’ I tell her. ‘How did you find out about Michelle’s party?’

She shrugs. ‘The girls were all talking about it on the Internet last night. Bryan hired out the whole of the top floor at Maxime’s for her, apparently. It was formal attire. Not really my scene, though, you’ll agree?’ I look at her closely, searching for any hint of regret at having been left out, but I can find none. Shelley accepts it; it is me who can’t accept it.

‘You’ll go to Summer Bay,’ I tell her. ‘No matter what happens, you’ll have your wish, I promise you that.’

‘Okay, Fairy Godmother,’ Shelley grins, dropping the peeled garlic cloves onto the chopping board. ‘I’ll leave it in your capable hands.’

If I know Bill, though, it is going to take more than a wave of a magic wand before he will let her go.

It is going to take something more akin to a miracle.

6 Rachel

I feel so…so pathetic and stupid and helpless now that Annie-Jo has gone. I’ve got all those I-should-have-saids twirling round in my brain like a snowstorm in a bottle and to what end? For what?

I’ve just pulled the tray out of the bottom of the toaster to get to all the crumbs. This is a job I never do, not ever. It is one of the least necessary things in my life and yet I am doing it now because…if I don’t do something constructive with all this energy I fear I may pick a chair up and hurl it through the window.

I am never going to mention to Annie-Jo how hurt I was that Shelley didn’t get an invite; I won’t, because there is simply no point. It’s gone. You can’t bring the past back. I can’t change anything, can I?

It’s the same reason why I don’t see any point hanging on to all the trash that people accumulate about the past. Like all the things Pandora sent me that I’ve shoved behind the pedal bin. What could possibly be in there that anyone could have judged worth keeping for all these years?

In fact, now that I’m down here throwing the crumbs away I can see I really need to clean out this cupboard under the sink, too. There are no less than three dried-up used teabags under here that never quite made the bin. And Pandora’s blooming box is taking up too much space. It makes the pedal bin stick out at the front so the door won’t close properly. It’s a darn nuisance having to hang on to all this for Lily, it really is. Pandora should have sent it all to her in the first place. Still, there is nothing stopping me from sticking it all in a slightly smaller (and fresher-smelling!) box that will fit more neatly behind the door. I don’t know where else I would put it; we’re bursting at the seams as it is.

Oh my god, there’s my old diary. I can’t believe she kept that! I just hope Pandora never read any of it. How embarrassing. I must have written pages and pages, what on earth did I go on about? Better take that out before Lily gets her mitts on it!

8 February 1978

Today my feet hurt and my legs hurt so much. We have to strengthen all our muscles, Mrs Legrange says. We have to keep on practising daily, practising and smiling, all the way through the pain because that’s what the pros do. Ha, if only she knew there is no way I am ever going to do this as my grown-up job, no way, ever! The competition season is coming up again and that means extra lessons which we’ve got no option but to go to because once it’s paid for, Dad says, it’s paid for and we go. But—here is my big secret—at the moment I don’t mind.

There’s this boy called Gordon. He’s sixteen. His partner is called Amelie and she’s two years younger than him. They aren’t boyfriend and girlfriend, though. You can tell it by the way they automatically separate once the dance is over. Their gaze goes to different things. She looks up to the balcony where someone else is watching her. He looks around at the edges of the dance floor, scanning the other couples, sussing out the opposition. He’s very focused. You can just see, he so much wants to win. He’s got what Dad calls ‘the hunger’; he says he’s one to watch. So I do; oh, I do.

I watch him when he’s dancing with Amelie; I watch the way that he looks at her, his eyes melting right into the very heart of her, and I find myself wondering, what might it be like if only he looked at me like that? Just the thought of it is enough to make me shiver. Just thinking about what it might be like if—just for one day—I could be his partner instead of Amelie, it’s been enough to get me into trouble with Legrange for not ‘paying proper attention’ already.

Oh, wow, I remember him now. I do. I remember how I used to hang about after class, looking out for him. He used to turn my insides to jelly! Just thinking about it is bringing a smile to my face because I can remember how it used to be, god, what it is, to be in love. I suppose it must be just a teenage thing, because I never remember feeling anything like it with Bill. Not that I didn’t love Bill, I did, but it wasn’t this kind of head-over-heels, all-consuming thing that I felt for this boy Gordon. And here’s the strange thing. When I think about it, I can hardly remember Gordon at all. I cannot bring to mind his face, or hear the sound of his voice any longer, it’s all faded. What I do remember, reading this, is how I felt about that boy!

4 March 1978

He asked me my name today. He’s been looking out for me. Well, that’s what I think anyway. My class finishes ten minutes earlier than his but three weeks in a row he’s come through the door into the hall at exactly the same time as me—can that be a coincidence? I told him, ‘Rachel’. He said that’s real nice. He’s got a soft voice but it’s got a strength about it, you can tell. He might be a dancer but he’s not the kind of boy any of the other lads would want to mess with. He told me his name was Gordon, and I already knew that but I pretended I didn’t.

I got some other info from his partner, Amelie, too. He’s got a younger sister who’s only six, and he’s got a dog called Blanche and he’s into Guns N’ Roses. She told me all that without me having to probe too much and I don’t think she even suspects I’m interested in him yet cos I was pretty casual about it.