This Perfect World Read online

  THIS PERFECT WORLD

  SUZANNE BUGLER

  MACMILLAN

  Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  ONE

  Heddy Partridge was never my friend. I have to start with that.

  Heddy Partridge was never my friend because I was pretty, popular, clever and blonde and my friends were pretty, popular, clever and generally blonde, too.

  Heddy Partridge was none of these things.

  Heddy was dark and lumpen, with heavy eyebrows and an unfortunately large mole on her left cheek, right below her eye. Heddy wasn’t popular. In fact I couldn’t tell you who her friends were at school, but I certainly wasn’t one of them, even though she was always there in my life like a misplaced shadow, a stain, a sort of negative of myself, until we were streamed in the third year of senior school and I was put in the top stream and Heddy in the bottom, confirming her as thick and finally shunting her out of my life, to be more or less forgotten, until now.

  When the phone rings I am distracted, caught off-guard.

  It’s a hot afternoon in May. Arianne is in the garden with her little friend Molly and Molly’s mother, Belinda, and I’m on my way indoors to fetch cold drinks. Soon it will be time to collect Thomas from school. I snatch up the phone when it starts ringing and this rusty voice crackles down the line saying, ‘Laura Cresswell? Can I speak to Laura Cresswell, please?’

  ‘It’s Laura Hamley,’ I say automatically, stuffing the phone between my chin and my ear, and holding it there with my shoulder while I carry on into the kitchen, ‘speaking.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ this tired voice comes back at me while I take glasses down from one cupboard and plastic cups from another, ‘of course it is, dear.’ There’s a pause then, and I get the strangest sense of relief coming down the phone; that gets my attention far more than the use of my maiden name. In the garden the girls are singing ‘Le Chat à la Promenade’ at full volume, with Belinda leading the way. I move away from the window, away from the noise, and that thin voice says in my ear, ‘It’s Mrs Partridge here, dear. Helen Partridge’s mother. You remember me, don’t you, dear? You remember Helen.’

  Oh, I remember Helen all right. I remember Heddy.

  Memory comes rushing back – dormant, never gone. I stand in my kitchen with my phone against my ear, waiting to be accused.

  ‘I got your number from your mother,’ Mrs Partridge says, ‘before she moved. She said you were living in Ashton, now. It’s nice to keep in touch, I said to her. Your family were always very kind to us. It’d be nice for Heddy, you know, to hear from you. You were such good friends, once.’

  She’s lying, saying that. Oh, my family was nice to her family all right, but Heddy and I were never friends. She breaks off again, and the heat is burning in my face. There’s want in her voice, though she isn’t getting to the point. I can hear that want in every word. Though what it could possibly be that Mrs Partridge wants from me, now, after all this time, I cannot imagine.

  They’ve stopped singing outside. It’s nearly a quarter to three and Belinda is calling through the kitchen window, ‘Do you need a hand in there, Laura?’ I can see her face through the glass, distorted by the sunlight, looming.

  ‘It’s lovely to hear from you, Mrs Partridge,’ I lie into the phone, ‘but I’m really sorry, I can’t talk now. I was just on my way out.’

  ‘Can I call you back then?’ she asks quickly. ‘Later?’

  ‘Yes, yes, of course,’ I say as I take water from the fridge, and orange juice, and start pouring.

  ‘This evening?’ she persists. ‘Would that be convenient? Say half-past seven?’

  When I walk back through the conservatory and out into the garden, carrying my tray of drinks, Belinda is singing another song, French again. ‘Frère Jacques’ this time. She knows all the words, and the actions to go with them too. And she’s teaching them to the girls, moving her mouth and arms in this ridiculously exaggerated way. She’s kicked her shoes off and she’s crouching down at their level, bare toes spreading into the grass. She squats the way they show you to squat at antenatal classes, legs open, like she’s about to give birth. In between gestures she plants her hands on her thighs, for added balance, and bobs up and down slightly, like a toad. Her trousers have scooped down at the back, revealing an expanse of white skin and the top of her blue-grey pants. I can’t help noticing the label sticking out over the elastic: M&S size 16.

  In my head I join in with the other version, the school-dinner chant of:

  Mashed potato, mashed potato,

  Soggy peas, soggy peas,

  Sloppy semolina, sloppy semolina,

  No more, please.

  I think maybe I’ll tell Arianne my version later; she’ll like that. I especially think she’ll like that when I see her poor little face peering at me over Belinda’s shoulder. Molly is doing so well, earning big nods of approval from her mother, but Arianne looks totally bemused; one hand is up by her face, two fingers up her nose and one in her mouth. With the other hand she half-heartedly tries to join in with the actions, and gets it wrong.

  ‘Drinks, girls,’ I say, putting Arianne out of her misery, and Belinda turns to look up at me, pushing her bobbed hair back behind her ears.

  ‘You should send her to French classes,’ Belinda says, sitting back on the grass and stretching out her legs. She has very short toes, attached to very short feet; I try not to notice as she wiggles them shamelessly. She is badly in need of a pedicure. ‘Molly goes every Tuesday, after Tumbletots,’ she says all enthusiastically. ‘It’s amazing how quickly they learn, at this age. Josie Hall’s sending Katie; they’re bringing her up bilingual. They’re teaching her the French word for everything, as well as the English. Isn’t that such a good idea? She’ll have such a head-start when she goes to school.’ She takes the glass that I hand her and gulps down her drink. ‘Of course they’re a bit worried because she’s still not talking yet, but they’re getting her seen by a speech therapist. And Josie says Katie loves it when they talk French to her.’

  *

  Later, when she is still warm and damp from the bath, I wrap Arianne up in her fluffy white towel and curl her up on my lap like a baby. The ends of her hair are wet from the bubbles. Gently I rub at them with the edge of the towel and watch the curls spring back. Holding her like this is such a joy. I can never do this with Thomas, he’d wriggle and squirm and escape, always off somewhere, always busy.

  ‘Mummy,’ Arianne says suddenly, snuggling deeper into my arms, ‘why does Molly’s mummy sing strange songs?’

  ‘They’re French songs.’ I press my face against her hair and breathe her in; she smells of heaven.

  ‘What’s French songs?’

  ‘Songs people sing in France,’ I say.

  She turns in my arms and looks at me, a little frown creasing her forehead. ‘Are we in France?’

  I laugh. ‘No, darling, we’re not.’

  That little frown gets deeper. ‘Is Molly in France?’

  ‘No, darling, she isn’t. Nor is her mother.’

  ‘Then why do they sing French songs?’

  ‘I don’t know, darling,’ I say and pop a kiss onto her serious little face. ‘I don’t know.’


  No wonder poor Katie Hall has got delayed speech. The poor child is probably totally confused. Bilingual, indeed! Non-lingual is more like it.

  I slide Arianne off my knee and start putting her into her pyjamas. ‘Listen,’ I say. ‘I know some funny words to that song.’

  Soon she’s running round her room singing, ‘Mashed potato, mashed potato, soggy peas,’ and Thomas comes bounding in wearing nothing but his Bob the Builder pyjama top, and joins in.

  ‘Soppy Semolina, Soppy Semolina . . . Who’s Semolina?’ Arianne asks.

  ‘It’s sloppy semolina,’ I say. ‘School dinners.’

  ‘Argh!’ Thomas clutches at his throat and falls to the floor, dead. ‘School dinners – argh!’

  I think Mrs Partridge won’t call back, but she does, at bang on seven-thirty. This time she’s concise, to the point. I have the feeling that she’s been there all afternoon, by the phone, waiting until the allotted hour.

  ‘It’s about poor Heddy,’ she says. ‘You know she hasn’t been well. Your mother would have told you . . . I often used to see your mother down the High Street, before she and your father moved away. She always asked after poor Heddy, she was always so kind. So kind to take an interest.’ I can’t remember what my mother may or may not have told me about Heddy Partridge over the years; whatever she said would have gone in one ear and out the other, not interesting me. Not relevant any more. ‘She’s not been well at all, dear, Heddy hasn’t. She’s in the hospital now, in St Anne’s, out past Hounslow. You know it, don’t you, dear? St Anne’s? They have a unit there. That’s where Heddy is, in the unit. They’re keeping her there. I have the boy, Nathan, staying with me now. I had them both staying with me till all this . . . And glad to have them with me too, I am. I do my best for poor Heddy, but . . . It isn’t right that they’re keeping her there. It isn’t doing her any good. She isn’t getting any better . . .’

  Her voice starts to crackle and she breaks off on a cough. I have to say something, but all I can manage is platitudes. ‘That’s terrible, Mrs Partridge,’ I say, ‘I am sorry.’ It’s kind of disturbing the way she assumes I’d already know all this.

  When she speaks again her voice is clearer, bolder. ‘I need to get her out, dear,’ she says, and suddenly I know where this is going. ‘She needs to be home, with me, and with Nathan. Your mother told me how well you were doing, living in Ashton now, and your husband being a solicitor. And she said to me before she moved, she said that I could call on you if ever I needed any help, dear. She gave me your number. This number and your mobile number as well, dear. So kind.’ She falters a little now, and no wonder. ‘So that’s why I’m calling you, dear,’ she says as if I hadn’t got the message. ‘I need your help.’

  I feel a hard knot of anger tightening up in my stomach. But who is it that I should be angry with? Mrs Partridge for phoning me up out of the blue like this, or my mum, for telling her to? I can just picture it: my mum and Mrs Partridge in Forbury High Street. And my mum doing her Lady Bountiful act, for the benefit of passers-by. I picture her hunting in her bag for a pen and a scrap of paper, and scribbling down both my phone numbers and pressing the paper into Mrs Partridge’s hand. Do call Laura if you need anything.

  I picture this, and the knot tightens.

  But even so, it was just a throwaway line, surely? Surely my mum didn’t mean it? And what business has she got, giving out my mobile number to anyone, let alone Mrs Partridge? She could ring any time. She could ring when I’m in yoga, for God’s sake.

  I feel myself trapped; cornered and exposed.

  ‘Mrs Partridge,’ I say, ‘I am sorry to hear about Heddy. But I really don’t see that there’s much I can do.’

  ‘But your husband, dear. I thought if you spoke to him.’

  ‘James is a property lawyer, Mrs Partridge. He doesn’t know anything about hospitals.’

  ‘He’ll know about the law, though. He’ll know about rights.’ I hear the plea of desperation in her voice, driving her on. ‘Perhaps if you’d just speak to him, dear—’

  ‘Really, Mrs Partridge, I don’t think he’ll be much help.’

  ‘But perhaps you’d ask him. And if I was to phone you again in a day or two . . .’

  ‘The thing is, Mrs Partridge, James is really busy at the moment. We both are.’ I say this, but then the silence on the other end of the phone has me adding, ‘But I will try.’

  ‘You’ll speak to him?’

  ‘I’ll do my best.’

  I know I won’t, though. Oh, I might mention it to James in passing, but it won’t make any difference. I doubt if he’d know any more about hospitalization and patients’ rights than I do. He doesn’t have a magic wand that he can wave at every turn, dispensing legal advice like fairy dust. And more to the point, he doesn’t have the time. ‘Tell her to go to the Citizens Advice Bureau,’ he’d say, ‘or to her local solicitors.’

  It used to happen all the time, people badgering him for advice over things like parking-ticket disputes or bothersome neighbours, especially when he was newly qualified. We’d go to dinner parties and as soon as people found out he was a lawyer, there’d always be someone bombarding him with their problems, or trying to catch him out with a trick question.

  Of course it doesn’t happen much any more. These days when we go to dinner parties the other guests are mostly lawyers, and wives of lawyers, or bankers, and wives of bankers. It’s like a club we’ve sold up into. People like us, James said when we were thinking of buying this house. People like us live here.

  And Mrs Partridge and Heddy, they are from a different world.

  *

  This is the quiet hour, before James comes home.

  The children are in bed; the house is silent and the supper prepared. Normally I’d pour myself a glass of wine and curl up on the sofa and read for a while, cherishing the peace. But tonight I have no peace because Mrs Partridge has broken it. Mrs Partridge is in my head and Heddy Partridge is back in my life.

  Helen Audrey Partridge. There, the girl is so under my skin that I can even remember her middle name. I can remember some moment from the juniors, years ago, when we all had to tell our middle names, and God help you if yours was something weird, something old-fashioned, named after a grandmother or something awful. God help you then, and God help Heddy. Hers wasn’t the worst by any means, but it got the loudest laugh, the longest laugh.

  Heddy Audrey Partridge. God knows why they called her Heddy instead of Helen, but everyone did. I can picture us all now, standing in the playground in a synchronized circle with Heddy in the middle, and reciting so carefully, so slowly, with all the movements perfectly timed:

  I tells (touch the eye, touch the mouth)

  Heddy (point to the head, of course)

  Smells (hold the nose, wave away that stink).

  I was the genius who worked out that little rhyme, and how clever we all thought I was. I remember Heddy standing there and letting us sing this to her. I remember her bashful face, her hating it and loving it – loving the attention, however absurd.

  I wasn’t cruel. God, I hope I wasn’t cruel. I was a child.

  She smelled of digestive biscuits. I said this to my friend, when we were tiny still, back in the infants, and she said it was because Heddy weed in her bed every night, and never changed the sheets.

  ‘Then how do they dry?’ I asked, and I wondered if it was true. I wondered it every time I was near her and smelled that smell. Nobody ever stood very close to Heddy in assembly.

  ‘Heddy P smells of wee,’ my friend said, and soon the boys started saying it too, and they went on saying it, right through the juniors.

  Heddy Audrey Partridge. Pant-wetter extraordinaire. God, I could tell you a million things about that girl, but the thing that sticks in my mind most of all – the thing that makes me loathe her above all else – is the time she pissed herself at ballet. When I think of Heddy, I think of that. I see her plump body with its round belly and its mini-breasts, stuffed into her
leotard and tights. I see her lumbering along behind the rest of us, slower than the rest of us. I see her getting her steps wrong and Madame getting impatient with her again. I hear Madame saying, ‘Come on, come on, please try, Helen. We are a nymph, not a nincompoop . . .’

  Then we were in our circle and Heddy was all over the place, feet everywhere, and Madame was getting crosser and crosser, and Heddy was getting clumsier and clumsier. Suddenly there was the sound of water hitting the floor, and we all looked at Heddy and there she was, standing with her feet somewhere between fourth and fifth position, with a stream of pee pouring down between her legs. She pissed like an elephant. Loads of it, coming straight down, while we all stopped our steps and watched, transfixed, horrified. I remember the embarrassment, turning my insides over. I remember Heddy’s face, moon-shaped and blank, her eyes both bright and empty, like a rabbit’s.

  We were ten years old.

  On and on it went, and we couldn’t do anything until it stopped. Even Madame was caught in stone, her ceaseless instructions suspended. It started spreading out across the floor. The girl next to Heddy had to quickly move away and someone giggled. Madame regained her control, said Okay, girls, class is nearly over and carried on with her one two three, one two threes. We moved our feet and our arms, but we were all looking at Heddy. I was looking at Heddy, and I was feeling a loathing so strong that it shocked me. She stood still, feet planted in her puddle, with the wet patch visible on her leotard, a dark triangle at the top of her fat, wet thighs.

  You could see the look of relief on Madame’s face when she could dismiss us at last, and then the whispering started. Our coats were at the back of the hall, hanging up on pegs. Heddy’s was an anorak. She put it on and it only just covered her bottom. Then she stood there looking back across the hall at the trail of footprints she’d left, and she waited for me.