Truly Madly Guilty(16)

chapter seven



The day of the barbeque

‘Let’s just forget it,’ said Clementine.

It was nearly one o’clock, they were expected at Erika’s house for afternoon tea at three, and Sam and the girls still hadn’t managed to actually leave the house to give her the promised practice time. It wasn’t going to happen.

‘No,’ said Sam. ‘I will not be defeated by one small shoe.’

One of Ruby’s brand new, remarkably expensive, flashing-soled runners had gone missing and due to a recent growth spurt those were the only shoes that fit her at the moment.

‘What’s that poem?’ said Clementine. ‘For the want of a nail the shoe was lost, for the want of a shoe the horse was lost … and then something, until the kingdom is lost.’

‘What?’ grunted Sam. He lay flat on his stomach on the floor, looking under the couch for the shoe.

‘For the want of a shoe my audition was lost,’ murmured Clementine as she pulled the cushions off the same couch to reveal crumbs, coins, pencils, hairclips, a sports bra, and no shoe.

‘What?’ said Sam again. He stretched out his arm. ‘I think I see it!’ He pulled out a dust-covered sock.

‘That’s a sock,’ said Holly.

Sam sneezed. ‘Yes, I know it’s a sock.’ He sat back on his haunches, massaging his shoulder. ‘We spend half our lives trying to locate possessions. We need better systems. Procedures. There must be an app for this. A “where’s our stuff?” app.’

‘Shoe! Where are you? Shoe!’ called out Ruby. She walked about lopsidedly wearing one shoe, stamping it occasionally to make the coloured lights flash.

‘Shoes do not have ears, Ruby,’ said Holly contemptuously.

‘Erika says we need a shoe rack by the door.’ Clementine replaced the cushions on top of all the detritus. ‘She says we should train the children to put their shoes there as soon as they come in.’

‘She’s right,’ said Sam. ‘That woman is always right.’

For someone who didn’t want children, Erika had a wealth of parenting expertise she felt obliged to share. You couldn’t say, ‘How would you know?’ because she always cited her sources. ‘I read an article in Psychology Today,’ she would begin.

‘She sounds like one of those toxic friends,’ Clementine’s friend Ainsley had once said. ‘You should cull her.’

‘She’s not toxic,’ Clementine had said. ‘Don’t you have friends who annoy you?’ She thought everyone had friends who felt like obligations. There was a particular expression her mother got when she picked up the phone, a stoic ‘here we go’ look, which meant her friend Lois was calling.

‘Not the way that chick bugs you,’ said Ainsley.

Clementine could never, would never, cull Erika. She was Holly’s godmother. The moment, if there had ever been such a moment, where she could have ended their friendship was long gone. You couldn’t do that to a person. Were there even words for it? Erika would be devastated.

Anyway, over recent years, since Erika had met and married the lovely serious Oliver, their friendship had become much more manageable. Although Clementine had cringed at Ainsley’s use of the word, ‘toxic’ was actually an accurate description of the feelings Clementine had so often felt in Erika’s presence: the intense aggravation she had to work so hard to resist and conceal, the disappointment with herself, because Erika wasn’t evil or cruel or stupid, she was simply annoying, and Clementine’s response to her annoyingness was so completely disproportionate, it embarrassed and confounded her. Erika loved Clementine. She’d do anything for her. So why did she inflame Clementine so? It was like she was allergic to her. She’d learned over the years to limit the time they spent together. Like today, for example: when Erika had suggested lunch, Clementine had automatically said, ‘Let’s make it afternoon tea.’ Shorter. Less time to lose your mind.

‘Please can I have a cracker, Daddy?’ said Holly.

‘No,’ said Sam. ‘Help look for your sister’s shoe.’

‘You girls make sure you say please and thank you to Erika and Oliver at afternoon tea today, won’t you?’ said Clementine to the girls as she tried behind the curtains for the missing shoe. ‘In a nice, big loud voice?’

Holly was outraged. ‘I do say please and thank you! I just said please to Daddy.’

‘I know,’ said Clementine. ‘That’s what made me think of it. I thought, “What good manners!” ’

If Holly or Ruby were ever going to forget to say please or thank you, it would be with Erika, who had a habit of pointedly reminding the girls of their manners in a way that Clementine found to be kind of unmannerly. ‘Did I hear a thank you?’ Erika would say the moment she handed over a glass of water, cupping her hand around her ear, and Holly would answer, ‘No, you didn’t,’ which came across as precocious, even though she was just being her literal self.

Holly took off her shoes, climbed on the couch, balanced on her socks on the side with her arms held out wide like a skydiver, and then let herself fall, face first onto the cushions.

‘Don’t do that, Holly,’ said Sam. ‘I’ve told you before. You could hurt yourself.’