Worn Out Wife Seeks New Life Read online

  Tess’s lovely family home, Ambleside, was cleaned most weeks of the year by Angela, the trusted cleaning lady, but Tess was not at all shy of the heavy lifting of cleaning work. So, in River’s apartment she began with the kitchen, then moved on to the bathroom, spraying and scrubbing until there was a light haze of cleaning fluid fumes.

  She spent almost an hour on the bathroom alone, where with an onslaught of bleach, grout cleaner and stain-removing stuff she worked away until it squeaked with cleanliness. Tess even threw out the mouldy shower curtain and bathmat and installed tasteful white-and-blue replacements she’d found at the store. And yes, there was satisfaction to be had in turning such a grubby space into a clean and welcoming place, but Tess also felt disappointment as she scrubbed between the tiles with the cheap toothbrush she’d bought for this purpose. Why hadn’t River felt the same need that Tess had to have her home ready to welcome her guest? It made Tess wonder if she was going to be cleaning up after people and sorting out their messes for the rest of her life. Maybe that was the aura she gave off: capable, boring old Tess, can cope with whatever you throw at her, soaker-up of dramas, sorter out of messes – leave it to Tess, she can deal with it.

  She even dropped a tear or two of self-pity before she told herself off. So what if she had to spend a day or two cleaning, and some time every day looking after unexpected dogs? She was here, wasn’t she? She was going to have much more time to herself than she’d ever had before. She was going to spend time on herself and sorting out her own things, for once.

  In the living space and bedroom, much tidying, storing and cleaning of surfaces was done. River’s endless piles of books and papers were neatly rounded up and stacked into the bookcases and the two laundry bags.

  Fortified by several tea breaks, Tess went on to wash the grimy windows and she de-clogged the elderly vacuum cleaner, coaxing it back into effective life, so she could suck up some of the clouds of dust and dog hair drifting around the floors, the sofas, under the beds and in all the nooks and crannies of the rooms. Then she vacuumed blinds and bookshelves and the tops of cupboards. She disturbed layers and layers of dust, causing the particles to hang in the bright beams of sunshine and make her sneeze violently.

  As she worked her way through every necessary job, the flat began to look lovely. She set fruit out in a little bowl in the kitchen. New soap and rolls of toilet paper went into the clean bathroom. She rearranged the antique desk and its orthopaedic-looking chair to make better use of the space and the light. She picked interesting books from the bookcase that she wanted to browse and set them out on the coffee table. She found two small vases in the process of the kitchen tidy and made a note to bring flowers back from her next trip to the store. She put freshly vacuumed rugs out for the dogs to sit on when they came back from the long walk they were on with Tom.

  And then there was only one ghastly chore left…

  The poo-filled balcony would have to be cleared and fully washed down so that she could wash the outside of the big window and sit at the little café table and chair set out there, not to mention teach the dogs that this was definitely not their toilet any more.

  It was a nice size of balcony – maybe three, even four, metres long and a metre and a half wide. The wooden table and chair out there looked grubby, bleached by the sun and unloved. She would solve that with a quick wash down and a little pot plant… but before that, it was the fifteen or so dollops of dog mess, in varying stages of dryness that had to be tackled first.

  Well, Tess… fixer of messes, dealer of dramas, scooper of other people’s dogs’ poo… you deal with this and then surely you get a break from cleaning up after others, she reasoned with herself? Just one last, monumental effort.

  It was a horrible job but it was worth it to reclaim that balcony, surely? The balcony would be a lovely space, where she could sit and read, think and daydream in the sunshine. A lot of the thick, extra-large poo bags she’d bought were going to be needed, but she could definitely do this. She would find something that could act as a shovel, a kitchen utensil if that was all that was available, and she would swathe it in poo bag. She’d also wear gloves swathed in poo bags. Then she’d round up all these horrible dog dollops, seal them up in a bin bag and then get that bag out of the flat and into the outdoor bins as quickly as possible. The balcony would then be fully bleached and scrubbed.

  This was not going to be at all nice, but it would be worth it.

  Gloved, bagged, armed with a double bin bag and a well-wrapped frying pan spatula, she headed out onto the balcony. She dealt with the drier dollops first, building her bravery. Spatula under, transfer into bag, don’t think about it too much. She was used to dealing with dog poo, she’d had her own dog for years – that thought accompanied by the now familiar pang of pain as she thought of Bella. But scooping up your own dog’s freshly delivered… well, it was like changing other children’s nappies, there was an added layer of horribleness when it wasn’t your own dog or child.

  When the driest clumps were rounded up, it was time to hold her breath and brace herself for the grosser, stickier stuff. After offloading the first mound into the bin bag, she decided that the kitchen spatula she was using would be going into the bin too, after this and she would buy River a new one.

  Mound by grisly mound, she shovelled, holding her breath, trying not to look too closely where possible. She tried to develop a deft flick to move the heaps quickly into the bag. The flexible, rubbery spatula was actually pretty good for this and her flicks were getting practised. When the flat rubber surface was right under mound, just a quick snap of the wrist would splat the mound straight into bag. This method was working well until, like every beginner happy with their progress, she grew just a little too confident. She put the spatula in place, snapped her wrist hard and the soggy mound flew not into the bin bag opening, but straight above it, flying with force into the balcony’s left side railing. There, it broke apart, some poo splattering against the metal rails, some carrying on with its trajectory.

  Tess stood up and looked over the rail. The balconies on this building had been cleverly staggered, to allow more variation of sunshine and shade, and to give a more attractive look to the front of building. But as she peered over, she realised this meant things could fall from one balcony to another. And the dog poo had dropped from this balcony onto the one below.

  On the neat and tidy balcony below, with lush pot plants and a bigger table covered with a jaunty red tablecloth, someone had set out a soft and comfortable pair of black lace-up shoes. Dance shoes… jazz shoes… maybe? A large dollop of poo had splatted beside the shoes and another large dollop had made a direct hit, on both the outside and the inside of one shoe. Tess was too surprised to do anything. She just stared, open-mouthed.

  But then a dark head of hair appeared and she pulled back from the railing.

  She heard the loud, angry: ‘What the actual…?’

  And dropped her horrible utensil and bags and stepped inside.

  Bloody hell… bloody hell… what was she supposed to do now? In Britain, you could go and apologise about things like this and hope that people would usually be understanding, forgive a neighbour’s mistakes, or eccentricities even. But here, she’d seen enough US TV to know that Americans often didn’t hold back; typically, they let you feel the full force of their anger… and they often had guns.

  Tess suddenly felt very new here… on unfamiliar territory and alone. Oh, come on… she told herself. I’ll just go downstairs and apologise, wholeheartedly, totally sincerely… and offer to clean up. Yes, that was the right thing to do. Go down a floor, knock on the door and sort this out straightaway.

  She took her gloves off, then realised she’d need her poo-clean kit. The gloves and the bin bag and the wrapped spatula – she’d wrap it up in another bag. She was just getting ready to go out when she heard the doorbell ring long and loud. This was followed by fierce, impatient knocking at the door.

  ‘That’s it! That is the fina
l freaking straw with those dogs!’ a furious voice insisted from the other side of the door.

  ‘Open up! Open this door! Or I will knock a freaking hole in it! Do you have any idea? These shoes… these shoes were given to me by Savion Glover.’

  The voice got even angrier, even higher: ‘By Savion himself! They can never be replaced! So open this goddam door!’

  18

  River had eaten cereal for breakfast; she’d been out for a brief walk in the dewy, early morning sunshine; there was a large cup of dark, steaming coffee at her side; her laptop was open and blinking expectantly at her; and now that River was all set, all prepared, all required to write… she didn’t know where to start.

  It wasn’t that her mind was a blank. No, her mind was a constant whirlpool of thoughts and ideas, a tangle of words and phrases. She opened the document with her notes for improving the rewrite she’d created so far. At the top of the page, she’d typed in capitals: ‘THIS ALL SUCKS’, but now she wasn’t sure if she’d meant the script, or her ideas for improving it.

  ‘Okay, calm down, calm the freak down,’ she told herself, ‘we’ve done this before. We can do it again. It’s just a question of beginning, of finding the way in… the key.’

  She stared hard at her notes for several long minutes:

  The character of Portia isn’t right, we just don’t like her.

  What to do about all this girls dressing up as boys? How to make that relevant? Transgender?

  The ending… I hate the ending.

  Followed by:

  Actually, I hate this entire play.

  And that was the big, fat problem right there. She’d re-read The Merchant of Venice, and then she’d watched an excellent film version. And now she was booked in to see the show up close in Stratford. But she didn’t like the play. It was ancient and stuffy, and try as she might she couldn’t see anything fresh or new in it at all. The Jewish guy got punished at the end – for being Jewish. There was no redemption for him. It was all just a huge, stinking mess of prejudice. Half of his fortune was stolen from him and half was given to his daughter because she was giving up being Jewish and marrying a Christian – which was seen as a major relief. What on earth could River do with an ending like that? And in a film for teenagers?

  In the current version of the script, the final scene showed a big group hug and a song and dance routine and none of these major problems were addressed.

  She took a big gulp of coffee, sighed, looked out of the window and then couldn’t resist checking her Twitter feed… followed by her Instagram… then even her Facebook. There was Phillip Renfield posting a picture of the view from his 5 a.m. hike: ‘Starting early, feeling positive’. Oh, and one of her ex-agents was having a humblebrag about ‘inking a deal’ between one of his writers and the producer-of-the-moment: #oursuccess. And on she scrolled through all these glimpses into lives that looked so much more considered, successful and downright more beautiful than her own. She should be tweeting/posting too, of course. Maybe a nice shot of her laptop and her cup of coffee: #workinghard on amazing script for @PhillipRen #excited #Shakespeareforteens, or whatever. But she wouldn’t, because that kind of thing always made her feel like a big, phoney show-off.

  She stared at her notes for another ten minutes, but feeling nothing but irritation, her mind drifted to a calming trip to eBay where she stalked vintage Ralph Lauren items and used G-star jeans. Oh, just look at that navy cashmere blazer, US size 6 – perfect and to die for. Still, a buy it now price of $220, that was a lot for elderly and possibly moth-holed cashmere.

  To River’s disgust, the entire morning evaporated, somewhere between Instagram, Facebook, eBay and her notes, and she had made no further progress on the script rewrite.

  Finally, she put the laptop into sleep mode, picked up her empty mug and stalked angrily down to the kitchen. From the sliding glass doors there, she could see the garden was bathed in sunlight and it was all so impossibly green. Green grass, green bushes, green plants; there were some flowers, yes, but above all, the impression was deliciously green – so different to the sandy, parched views in LA, punctuated only by the dusty, spiky beige and blue of desert plants that could cope with the heat.

  She opened the sliding door and stepped out into this soft, lush green world. For several moments, she stood and drank it in, feeling her shoulders lower and the sun fall onto her face. She stretched out her arms and smiled, sure she was alone. Then she remembered the summerhouse at the bottom of the garden, and Dave, and felt an urge to find out what he was up to.

  So, she crossed the lawn and approached the door of the robust wooden house. Then she rapped on the glass window and called out, ‘Hi!’

  It took a few moments for Dave to open the door. He looked a little rumpled, hospital-issue crutch under one arm, hair on end, his t-shirt creased and saggy. ‘Is everything okay?’ he asked with concern.

  ‘Yeah, sure, everything is fine… with the house, anyway. The house is awesome,’ she assured him. ‘I was just about to brew up another round of coffee and I thought you might like some.’

  ‘Oh… that’s very kind,’ he told her, ‘but I don’t want to put you to any trouble, don’t want to bother you in any way at all. The idea is that I am not here; I am the invisible man unless required.’

  River peered past Dave and tried to get some impression of what the summerhouse was like inside. All she could see was a large table behind him with a stack of white canvases, a glass vase filled with paintbrushes and a pile of paint tubes.

  ‘How’s the painting going?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh… I’m just getting started, setting everything out really… canvases on one side, all my new paints and old brushes on the other. Just getting prepped… and… all set up.’

  He sounded a little guilty.

  River understood that feeling exactly. All prepped… all set up… and no idea where to start.

  ‘How’s the writing?’ he asked in turn.

  She shrugged and gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Sucking the big time today, I can tell you that for free. Want to sit and have a coffee with me? Those chairs over there look desperate to be used.’

  ‘That sounds very civilised.’ Dave followed her gaze to the woven armchairs with comfortable cushions set on either side of a cast iron café table on the sunny corner of decking, all organised by Tess several years ago.

  ‘Is that British for yes?’ River asked, teasing gently.

  When the coffee was ready, River and Dave settled down into the armchairs and relaxed in the gentle English sunshine.

  After a little preamble chat about the loveliness of the garden and all the hard work Tess had put into it, River had a question for Dave she was burning to ask: ‘So how long is it since you last painted something?’

  ‘Well… in my classes, I’m demonstrating things all the time to my pupils,’ Dave began. ‘I’m sploshing about and showing how to do lines and frameworks and techniques, so it’s not as if I’ve stopped painting…’

  River nodded, then added: ‘Hmmmm, but that is different. That’s like me giving other people edits and suggestions and helping them to fix their work. But starting from the cold, blank page with your own idea, that is a world of difference. Having an idea in your head and then working to bring that idea out, in the best possible way you can, without disappointing yourself too much in the process, that is a whole different ball game. So…’ River leaned forward, curious now. ‘How long has it been since you did that? Painted your very own thing, from the beginning, from your very own idea?’

  Dave looked down into his coffee, as if he was hoping to find an answer in there.

  ‘Well… if we’re talking about starting from scratch and painting a brand-new thing… it’s certainly been a while…’

  River didn’t interrupt, hoping he would take the time to work it out.

  ‘It’s been about… how old is Alex now? He’s twenty-two… good grief… well, in that case it’s been about twenty years.’

&n
bsp; ‘Woah!’ River exclaimed. ‘That is a really long time.’ But then she smiled at him encouragingly. ‘Well, good for you, Dave! Good for you to want to start painting again. That’s huge.’

  ‘And possibly quite difficult,’ Dave said, sounding gloomy. ‘Possibly much more difficult than I could have imagined.’

  Dave wanted to add something about how his critical faculties had now totally outstripped his painting abilities, but he worried that he would sound completely arsy.

  ‘Well, I guess you’ll just have to start somewhere,’ River said, shaking the first cigarette of the day out of her pack. ‘Want one?’ she offered.

  ‘No… no, thanks…’ Dave was still holding out on her offers. But he was preparing to enjoy sniffing at the second-hand smoke, though.

  ‘Maybe don’t expect too much of yourself. If you were getting back into a car for the first time in twenty years, you wouldn’t rush out to drive down a freeway, would you? You would drive up and down a B-road for a while and get used to it all again.’

  Dave smiled at her. ‘I like that,’ he said, ‘that’s good advice.’

  ‘So what was going on when you were last painting regularly?’ she asked, ‘And what happened to make you stop?’ As she waited for the answer to this question, she lit up with her battered old brass lighter and carefully positioned the ashtray Dave had given her on her side of the café table.

  ‘This is okay, right?’ she asked. ‘The smoking, I mean… well, and maybe I should ask if it’s okay to ask you about this stuff too?’

  Dave waved his hand. ‘Yeah, it’s all fine.’

  ‘And how’s your leg? I should have asked about that,’ she said, sending smoke out of the corner of her mouth away from him.

  ‘The ankle seems to be okay,’ he replied, ‘and it’s hurting a lot less when I cough and laugh – the ribs,’ he reminded her, ‘it’s so itchy under the plaster, though. I’m trying to devise ways to stick something down there and give myself a scratch. But, anyway, you want to know when was I last painting a lot? That’s easy: I went to art school in London in the early 1990s. And can I just state for the record – my parents were furious. Absolutely furious!’