The Godmother Read online

  “Sounds as if he liked you—he bought you a croissant. Are you going to pretend to go to work next time you see him?”

  It is very irritating talking to someone who doesn’t listen. “No, Helen. If he’d said, ‘You are incredible,’ I may have been in line to receive more croissants. Because ‘You are incredible’ means let’s have a drink, do it all over again tonight, and tomorrow night, and see where this thing goes. ‘You were incredible’ means thank you and goodnight. A genius vanishing act. Especially considering I don’t have a moral leg to stand on. I shagged him after a forty-minute conversation over sag aloo. I consumed him. I took my fill, he took his; it was a short-lived contract.”

  “I think he’ll call.”

  “You would,” I said. “Your life is perfect. So in your world he’d call. Not in mine. And don’t give me any of that ‘Desiderata’ bollocks about love being as perennial as the grass, because I’ve hit an extended bald patch.”

  Helen stood up, grabbed a sponge and began to wipe at a perfectly clean surface. I know it was a big house, but Helen had plenty of help. A cleaning lady came every day. A nanny came during the weekdays to help with the babies. And they had a wonderful woman who lived with them. Rose is her name. I’d known Rose almost as long as I’d known Helen. Originally she came from the Philippines; she’d been Helen’s father’s housekeeper in Hong Kong and had looked after Helen since she was a baby. Helen’s parents’ marriage hadn’t lasted long, so she had spent her school holidays back in Hong Kong with Rose and her father. In reality, of course, it was Rose. Tycoons don’t become tycoons by being home every night reading bedtime stories. Rose used to fly back and forth to Hong Kong accompanying Helen on those trips, but Marguerite, Helen’s mother, was not a hands-on parent either. She was busy jetting around Europe as a newly divorced wealthy woman. The nannies she hired never lasted very long. Helen had an incredible knack for making their lives a misery. So in the end Rose simply stayed with Helen wherever she was. I suppose Rose is responsible for Helen’s upbringing. No, not responsible. Her parents are responsible for that. But she put in all the legwork. Her hair was plaited, her teeth were cleaned, she was dressed, fed and watered by Rose. The only constants in Helen’s life were Rose, Marguerite’s absence and her father’s wealth.

  Marguerite and I do not get on. Her open criticism of her daughter has left me gaping in the past. If I was brought up in a greenhouse, Helen was like one of those tiny plants that manages to grow out of a rock face. I came to the conclusion a long time ago that Marguerite only went through the disruption of pregnancy in order to cement alimony. I’m not saying her father didn’t pay Helen any attention. He did. He worshipped her. But that’s not the same thing. I guess Helen’s childhood was that destructive combination of being spoilt and neglected at the same time. When her father died unexpectedly, Rose came to join Helen in London permanently. She’d been here ever since. I think Rose was supposed to be retired now, but she never sat down, she couldn’t. Needless to say, with Rose, the nanny and the daily, there was never any mess in Helen’s house. In fact, there was barely any evidence of life and certainly none of the twins.

  “I’m jealous,” said Helen.

  “Like hell you are. I got dumped on the tube.”

  “Sounds to me like you experienced one spectacular shag. Something I would offer Bobby and Tommy’s school fees for right now.”

  “Ah, still no action in that department?”

  Helen shook her head. “Neil can’t go anywhere near me.”

  Personally, I would have thought that was a blessed relief, but then I would rather be single for the rest of my days than have sex with Neil. I liked to think that I would be more gracious towards him if I was sure he made my friend happy, but I wasn’t sure that he did. Off the record, watching her marry him was one of the hardest things I’ve done. He was a struggling comic back then, and I have to admit I doubted his motives. Helen is what you’d call an heiress, I suppose. So yes, I wasn’t sure about Neil right from the beginning. But she always had faith in him, and she was right. He was on the cusp of stardom and, boy, he never let you forget it. The years she’d carried him had somehow been wiped from memory. If you didn’t know it, you’d think he’d bought their huge house himself, when I knew he hadn’t contributed a penny.

  “Have you heard from your boss?”

  “Ex-boss,” I insisted. “No. I’ve been meaning to call the office but I can’t even bring myself to punch in the number.” I still felt as though some people thought I should have kept my head down and waited until the man got bored of his failed advances. I did try. But he didn’t get bored and the more I ignored him, the worse it got. First I got nervous when he was in the vicinity, then his advances got scarier and more insistent, until finally I was afraid all the time. It was no way to live. I hated going to work, I hated coming home. I started to fear the telephone, I started to fear my own reflection. Calling the office would be re-engaging with something I wanted to leave to decompose on its own accord. My colleagues at work were like my family; I’d worked there for ten years, so naturally we spent absurd amounts of hours in one another’s companies. Losing them was a high price to pay in order to regain my freedom. I looked at Helen. Now I had to do something with that freedom.

  The door to the enormous kitchen opened. Helen jumped. I grimaced. That was the end of our girly chat. Helen would shut up now as her dazzling, famous husband took over. Neil went over and kissed his wife hello. Then he turned to me.

  “Wow, Tessa, look at you,” he said. I stood and fixed my obligatory smile on my face.

  “Hi, Neil. How’s the new show?”

  “Bloody hard work.”

  Personally I’d never seen the humor in Neil. He had a talent for misogynistic, hateful, racist, blue snooker hall humor which shocked. How he’d been picked up by Channel 4 amazed me. He always kissed me just on the mouth, both sides. I found it extremely invasive and had to stop myself from wiping my lips afterwards.

  “Doesn’t she look incredible, Helen?” he said, letting go of my arm.

  “Incredible,” said Helen.

  “Looking at Tessa makes me think you could do with a holiday,” said Neil. He poked his wife in the ribs and got a beer out of the fridge. “Get a bit of color back in your cheeks. Now that filming is finished, how about it?”

  I thought that was a bit uncalled for. And if I’d liked him more I would have said so. I would have said, “Fuck you, you bastard, you haven’t just had twins.” But you can’t talk to people like that unless you love them. So I moved away from him instead.

  “Helen looks amazing, as always. I can’t believe you had those giant boys only a few months ago. Could that jumper get any tighter? I love it, by the way.”

  “Consider it yours,” she said. “I’ll get it cleaned and give it to you. It’s more your color.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that,” I stated. “I was just saying that you look great.”

  “Course she does,” said Neil. “Still, a holiday would be nice. I’ve been working like a dog.”

  Trouble was, Neil was right; Helen did look withdrawn and though always slim, she now looked spindly. Concave. But wasn’t it a husband’s job to see beyond those things and always, only ever, compliment? Especially after childbirth. I looked again at Helen. She had big dark bags under her eyes and her once enviable cheekbones looked like what they were: a skull. A hollow, empty skull. Thanks to her Chinese bloodline, Helen never looked pale and pasty like the rest of us mere mortals, but even her complexion was looking papery and dull. Studying her now, I realized she didn’t look amazing, she didn’t even look OK and nothing like the lithe eighteen-year-old girl I’d met on the beach.

  Neil ruffled Helen’s hair. “She knows I love her just the way she is.”

  Helen smiled gratefully. I had to leave. Neil made me nauseous because I knew what he was really like but I could never tell Helen. The effect he had on his wife made me want to cry, but what could I do? Breaking up marriag
es, even ones I didn’t have any faith in, wasn’t my style.

  “I thought we’d go out for sushi round the corner,” said Neil. “Why don’t you come?”

  Helen may have been aware that I didn’t like her husband, but Neil seemingly didn’t have a clue. Ego and elephant skin are close traveling companions.

  “I’m going out, otherwise I’d love to.”

  “Come on—it will be more fun with you,” said Neil. “Honestly, left to our own devices we discuss the twins’ poo for hours. It’s not good for us.”

  “Thank you for trying to sound convincing,” I replied. Not convinced. “But Ben is taking me out to dinner.” That was wishful thinking on my part. I had no plans, but I couldn’t face an evening with Neil and Helen. When I saw Helen, it was on her own.

  “Ah well, we couldn’t possibly compete with Ben,” said Neil.

  “Ignore him,” said Helen. “He’s just jealous.”

  “Course I am. Every time his incredibly successful wife goes away on business, he gets to take another incredibly successful woman out to dinner.”

  I saw Helen sigh. It was the “incredibly successful” that did it. It sounded like Neil was complimenting me and Sasha, but what he was really doing was attacking Helen. Helen had never worked. Never. She had no real qualifications though she’d started a fair few courses. Helen didn’t need to work. But not doing so hadn’t helped her confidence—what confidence her mother had left her with, that is.

  After the divorce, Marguerite had worked her way up through a newspaper to become the editor. She was no shrinking violet and the looks Helen was blessed with were from her mother. We used to joke that Marguerite had slept her way to the top, but the truth is, Marguerite ain’t stupid; in fact, she’s formidable. Perhaps Helen was a disappointment to her, but jeez, a little encouragement might have helped. I don’t know whether the bar was simply set too high, or never raised off the floor. I didn’t meet Helen until we were eighteen and I guess the damage had been done by then. Seeing Neil do what Marguerite had always done broke my heart because I knew that somewhere in that emaciated shell was a girl with great chutzpah. The girl I’d met. The girl who’d been with me through my twenties, whom I’d done wildly irresponsible things with, the girl I missed. I tried to come to that girl’s subtle defense.

  “So successful that I’m currently out of work,” I said.

  “Not for long, I bet. So are you and Ben dining alone, à deux? Something we should know?”

  He can’t help himself, he always gets smutty.

  “If you mean are we going to catch up over some food, yes.” I shouldn’t rise.

  “And his wife doesn’t mind?”

  “Because there is nothing to mind. Can we change the subject, please?” I don’t like being teased about Ben. Especially not in front of Helen.

  “Defensive…” said Neil.

  “No. Bored. I thought you were going out for sushi.”

  Neil put his arm around Helen. “Come on, Tessa. You know we’re just digging for dirt.”

  Why did married people do that? Lick their lips over other people’s sex lives? I felt like a specimen.

  The nanny appeared with two powdered babies, pink from their bath, and ready for more food. They weren’t very attractive. Sadly they resembled their rather squat, mean-looking father rather than my beautiful friend. All they had were her dark eyes. Her oriental bloodline had been milked out by his white man’s overbite.

  “Why don’t you feed down here?” said Neil. “Helen can do them in tandem now.”

  Ew…“Are you still feeding?” I asked, surprised.

  “They recommend a year,” said Neil. “Improves the brain.”

  “Who recommends a year?” I asked. “Not people with twins, I bet.”

  “Not doing them any harm,” said Neil proudly. “Look at the size of them.”

  They were fat, it was true, but I wasn’t thinking about them.

  “Neil has allergies,” said Helen. I looked at her. Had the woman’s spine gone for ever? The girl I used to know wouldn’t think twice about dancing on bars, thumbing rides, flying to European cities to gatecrash a party, skinny-dipping in winter. Most of my craziest behavior was in some way related to her. Now…well, it had all changed.

  “Helen is coping brilliantly, most of the time. Go on, show Tessa.”

  I really didn’t need to see, but Helen dutifully pulled up her jumper and unhooked her nursing bra. I wasn’t exactly repulsed, but I wasn’t very comfortable either. Nor, it seemed, was Bobby; as soon as he was brought over to Helen he started fussing, kicking and arching his back. We all watched as she tried to force her nipple into the baby’s mouth. I pretended I needed something from my bag.

  “What’s wrong with him?” asked Neil.

  Bobby’s crying set off Tommy. I couldn’t actually tell them apart, but all their matching clothes had been scrupulously monogrammed, which made life easier. I had been so involved with Caspar, and incredibly hands-on with Cora, it worried me that I felt almost nothing for these little boys except a constant nagging irritation. They hadn’t taken Helen away, they hadn’t made her sell herself short, they weren’t responsible for the vanishing act my friend had performed, she’d done that all by herself.

  The fussing increased to a grating level.

  “It’s the lights and people,” said Helen. “I usually do this upstairs in a dim room to get them off to sleep. Sorry, Tessa, the last two hours of the day always seem longer than the previous ten.”

  I smiled sympathetically, but inside I was thinking, Try it without the brace of nannies, like most people, then complain. “I was going anyway,” I said, picking up my bag, desperate to leave before I gave myself away.

  “Stay and have a drink with me,” said Neil.

  “I’ve really got to go.”

  Helen handed the baby back to the nanny, who took him without a word. She balanced them both expertly on her hips, and began the long journey back upstairs. Helen came over to me and hugged me. It was a deep hug and for a second I felt concerned for her; people only hold on tight when they’re afraid of being washed away.

  “I think the nanny could do with some help,” said Neil, watching her go up the stairs with his bawling beefy sons.

  Well, you’ve got a pair of fucking hands, you help, was my immediate reaction. No wonder I wasn’t married. Helen did not express my thoughts. She didn’t even appear to share them; instead she released me from the embrace, turned away with no conspiratorial look and smiled. “Coming,” she said sweetly and joined her husband on the stairs. Hand in hand, they followed their children up to the nursery.

  I hadn’t paid much attention to Helen’s pregnancy. I was having troubles of my own. It was during that period that my ex-boss stopped being a bore, and started frightening me. Despite carrying twins, Helen stayed small for longer than most mothers I know who are having one. So sometimes I simply forgot she was pregnant. Practically everyone I knew was breeding and all the millions of other women whom I didn’t know. It was a pandemic. There were pregnant women wherever I looked. Or so it seemed to my tainted eyes. I, on the other hand, was being followed home by a married man. My friends and acquaintances were discussing fetal development and the pros and cons of taking omega-6 supplements; I was talking to ADT about putting in a panic button at home. So yes, Helen’s pregnancy did not win much of my attention. The birth was an elective Caesarean at the Portland Hospital, which did not engender much sympathy from me either, since I feared Neil’s influence on Helen’s decision to have the babies there began on the pages of Hello! magazine. Rather than cooing over newborns, I was spending my time in court, getting an injunction on a man who controlled my career. I didn’t even send flowers to the hospital.

  I got my coat from where Rose had hung it. I quickly went to the loo and washed my hands. I could hear the bawling continue upstairs. It was getting worse. Neil was putting his oar in; it didn’t sound particularly helpful. I still hadn’t heard a word from the nanny. I
pulled my hat down over my head, looked briefly at my reflection in the hall mirror and felt genuinely glad I was leaving. I pulled the wide heavy door behind me and breathed a sigh of relief. The setting sun picked out the newly auburn autumn leaves and made the trees vibrate with color. The air felt cool and clean. There was a French café nearby, and a bookshop. I could pick up a paperback and settle in with a glass of wine, maybe have an early dinner on my own…Why not? I was free to do as I pleased and for a brief moment I remembered what it was that I’d always loved about my life.

  At the gate I heard the door behind me open again. Helen stepped out. I turned.

  “Don’t leave me here,” she pleaded.

  Then Neil came out, grabbed her around the waist playfully and dragged her back in, laughing. I stared at the closed door and felt my whole body slump. Had I become so bitter that I couldn’t be happy for my friend? Wasn’t that affectionate, jocular moment between them proof that the only person poisoning this relationship was me? My relief slid away. I am ashamed to say it was quickly replaced by self-pity. It was no longer a cool evening. It was cold. The air wasn’t clean. It was full of carbon-monoxide. An evening alone, eating cheap food I could make better at home, reading a worthy book short on laughs, just seemed desperate and contrived now. I stood on the pavement until the cold seeped through the thin soles of my shoes and made me shudder. Was it better to be part of something than nothing? Helen had a huge house, staff, a husband, two sons—what did I have? Perhaps she wasn’t the one selling herself short.

  I have gone over that moment in my mind a thousand times since and I swear I saw her laughing. Now I realize that I was seeing only what I expected to see. Even though I was distrustful of it at the time and would have loved to have seen something else, I couldn’t. I was programmed not to. And that is why, even now, knowing what I know, my memory can only recall her laughing as Neil pulled her back inside the house.