The Night Book Part 21

'I've told you before ...'

This would go on for some time. It would end in one of a number of ways: shouting, slamming doors, flouncing, occasionally (once in a blue moon) tearful reconciliation. Simon glided silently to the toaster.

'What does he do in here? Just sit around and watch TV? What do you pay him for? Why can't we get a real cleaner?'

Privately (very privately) Simon was inclined to agree with the children. What was it exactly that Hombre did, apart from throw the house into an uproar every Thursday? The problem was, Karen was so house-proud she couldn't bear anyone to see the place a mess. She behaved as if the cleaner were a health inspector or a real estate agent, and lived in fear that he would come upon some excruciating disgrace: a stained sheet, an unflushed toilet. That he would emerge from the bedroom, scandalised, holding a pair of Simon's discarded underpants between finger and thumb. And so she routed them all out of bed and made them spruce the place up.

Hombre was from the Philippines, a sleepy, louche, camp young man who fluttered his eyelashes and t.i.ttered behind his hand when amused - and he was often amused by the Lamptons. He sometimes brought his family along, his mum or dad, his glamorous sisters. His dad sat out on the deck and munched corncobs while Hombre hummed his way across the floors, bowed under his backpack vacuum cleaner. Karen was always threatening to fire him. She said, 'He comes late. He doesn't dust properly.'

Simon thought, He probably doesn't think he needs to. He probably thinks this is the easiest gig in town.

Claire's fingers played over the pimple on her cheek. 'Why do you do it all for him? What's the point? Why are you so ...?'

And so it went on, until Karen put her hands up to her temples and shouted, 'Just get on with it. I've got so much to do. Do you know how much I've got to do?'

The moon had faded to a pale coin, up there in the bright blue. Briefly, Simon considered what he had to do. A list of surgicalprocedures in the morning, followed by an afternoon clinic.

He contemplated his children, their size and health and vitality. Sometimes just looking at them gave him relief. Life was chaos and the self was a poor wreck, the self was shamed and compromised and corrupt, but just look at them, with their s.h.i.+ning eyes. There was one thing he'd never doubted: he loved being a father, their father. His Claire, his Elke, his Marcus.

Claire's voice went high. Something had got to her, while he was dreaming there over the toaster. She banged her cup on the table andstormed across the room.

'You're a f.u.c.king c.u.n.t,' she said.

'Claire!'

'How rude,' Elke said, looking brightly at Karen.

Marcus wiped his nose on his sleeve.

'You're a c.u.n.t too.' Claire turned on Elke.

'Hmm,' Elke said, and ran her finger around her bowl. She hummed.

Karen said, 'She's used that word again. Can you believe it. In our home. In our own home. She's not coming in my car. She's not coming in my car. She can walk. In the rain.'

Claire said with a terrible smile, 'Oh good one, brainless. In the rain. Look out there. At the sun.'

Simon shouted at her, 'Enough!' They all jumped.

'She's not coming in my car. She's not coming in my car. She's not coming in my car.'

They got up, dispersed. Claire went up, came down, carrying a hockey stick. Upstairs, Karen moved furiously through the rooms. Twenty minutes later they were all out on the front steps and Karen was bundling Elke and Marcus into her car.

Without looking at Claire she drew Simon aside and hissed, 'Why don't you defend me? You just let her ...' She shook her head, bitter.

The car droned off up the road at high revs, in first gear.

But how do you do that, defend one against the other when you love them both? He loved Karen. She had married him; she had saved him from himself. And Claire. His own girl ...

In the garage he watched his daughter violently zipping up her schoolbag. She straightened, holding the hockey stick like a spear. Despite the unseasonably warm weather she'd looped a frayed woolly scarf around her neck. Her hair (his frizzy hair) stuck up in its parody pony-tail, like an explosion of Steelo pads. She was crying silently, tears running down her pimply cheeks.

He said gently, 'You grow out of it. The rage. It sort of leaves you.'

'All she cares about ...'

'Come on, Claire. Come on, darling.'

'All she cares about is the f.u.c.king house, the f.u.c.king money, the f.u.c.king National Party. And f.u.c.king Trish. And the f.u.c.king Hallwrights. She is the most inane, suburban b.i.t.c.h.'

'Come on. Stop. Get in the car.'

'She thinks she's got politics. All she's got is money and ... and... fascism.'

'Claire! All this swearing. Do you want to walk?'

She got in the car. He backed out of the driveway.

She gnawed her fingernails. 'The rage leaves you. What sort of c.r.a.p is that?'

'You get more steady. It gets easier to be happy when you grow up. At the moment you're all, you know, hormones.'

She said furiously, 'I am not all hormones. I'm perfectly rational. I'll never be like her. I'll never live like she does.'

'But you change when you grow up. Everything changes.'

'I'm not changing. I'm not settling for some bulls.h.i.+t suburban mummy life, all fundraising and the PTA and sucking up to the Ellisons and thinking you're flash because you went to St Cuthbert's.'

'You go to St Cuthbert's.' He looked sideways at her. 'Where's all this come from?'

Claire's expression changed. She looked pious, tragic. 'I despise my mother's values. Consequently, she hates me. It's ... a fact of life.'

He laughed. 'G.o.d, Claire, darling, she loves you, she adores you, ever since you were born. She's a good mother. Don't be so spoiled and ungrateful.'

'No. We're too different. She loves Elke and Marcus. She loves Elke because Elke is ... Elke.'

He said, squinting into the low sun, 'Couldn't you love Elke, just a bit? You're so savage with us all. Can't you give people a bit of leeway?'

She looked surprised. 'I do love Elke. Or, I wish I was like her. She's so secret and beautiful. And I'm so ...' She dropped her head, wiped her eyes.

He squeezed her arm. 'Secret?' he repeated. 'You mean secretive.'

'I don't know. No, not secretive, not like sneaky. She just keeps everything inside, you know. She's cool.'

There was a silence.

She sniffed. 'When Mum got Elke, she realised there were greener pastures.'

'What? Greener pastures?'

'She realised not all girls were like me. Some are like Elke - nice, easy. So she stopped thinking it was all her, and decided it was my fault she hated me so much. That I was a horror that had been foisted upon her.'

Simon grappled with this. It had to be denied, and yet, as with everything Claire came out with, there was a grain of truth in it. But the way she obsessed, channelled everything into her own rage. He said, 'Christ, Claire, stop. You're just inventing all this.'

Unexpectedly, she smiled. 'So, you stop feeling angry.'

'What? Oh yeah. In life. You calm down.'

She stared out the window. 'But why is that a good thing? You settle down, stop caring about things, bury yourself in the 'burbs. Pretty soon you're just one of them.'

'One of who - whom?'

'Mum. Trish.'

He said sharply, 'Give it a rest, Claire.'

'Racist. Conformist. Fascist. Obsessed with money ...'

A bus cut in front of them. Simon stamped on the brake and turned on her. 'What is it with you? Have you got Asperger's or something? Why do you have to harangue the world to death? People are doing their best. Usually for you. While you lounge around, complaining.'

They pulled over outside school, and he waited while she sobbed into his shoulder. She said drearily, 'I don't hate you.'

'I know. I know. Everything's all right. Everything's all right. Here, darling, dry your face.'

He watched while she threaded her way through the crowd, her hockey stick on her shoulder, ragged scarf trailing down her back. All those milling girls, their bright eyes, their terrible energy. Pity the poor teachers.

He started the car. He was running late, because of having to drop off Claire. Because it was Thursday.

By the end of the morning he'd nearly made up the time, but he was twenty minutes late for his clinic. Sweeping into his parking s.p.a.ce, he clipped a concrete pillar, and barely stopped to check the chalky sc.r.a.pe on the b.u.mper. The waiting room was full and when he checked the files he saw that Roza was booked as the last patient.

He forced himself to concentrate on each woman who came in. It was a skill he had, to appear relaxed and absorbed in their problems, and yet subtly to process them through. Some were hard to move, and he got the full range that afternoon, from impossibly chatty new mothers to a woman so paralysed by anxiety over the most minor symptoms that he felt like referring her to a shrink. There were ways of quelling, of hinting, but some were too fixated to respond, and the minutes dragged by, until finally he slapped his hands on his thighs, jumped from his chair and said, 'Thank you for giving me such a full picture. We're really going to get this sorted out now, aren't we.'

And she would have to rise, unwillingly, and he would waft her towards the door, looking over her shoulder, looking beyond.

He was carrying an infant in a car seat through the waiting room when the gla.s.s doors s.h.i.+vered open and Roza walked in. The patient said cosily, 'Thanks Simon.' Or, 'Thenks Soimon.'

Roza had approached the counter. He heard her give her name.

The woman held out her hand. He had a moment of blankness, stared, as she gestured at the car seat.

'Oh yes, sorry.' He handed the baby over, saw the woman's shoulder sag under the weight of the reinforced plastic chair. The child itself, premature, would weigh almost nothing. It looked up at him with puzzled eyes as it was borne away, its tiny forehead wrinkled with the effort of sight, sensation. Simon followed the baby's eyes and felt, like his recent patient, paralysed with nerves.

The receptionist said, 'Mrs Hallwright. Sure, have a seat.'

It took an effort to turn, to check the files in their tray on the counter and to see that there were still two patients to go.

Without looking at her he crossed the room and entered his office. Softly, he closed the door. Now he tried to direct all his quelling and soothing skills - onto himself. And found himself to be resistant. Nervousness didn't happen to him often, not the way it had back in his youth, when life had presented itself as a series of exquisite embarra.s.sments, when he was still forming the sh.e.l.l over what was wrong with him, what was strange.

He arranged the files on his desk, put his head in his hands and took a breath - in then out, slowly. He opened the door and called the next woman in.

When he'd dealt with the second to last patient and ushered her out, he retired to his room to prepare himself, and as he emerged again, resolute and artificially smiling, he found Roza up at the desk looking agitated. Clarice was saying, 'Just writing up his notes. I'm sure he won't be ... Oh. Here he is.'

Roza turned. Her face was contorted into a smile as false as his own, and so pale it seemed drained, almost haggard. There was a faint squeak in her voice. 'I don't think I can do it now. It's too late.'

Clarice looked at Simon. 'I can look at scheduling another day?'

He came forward. 'Sorry I'm late. I had some complications in theatre this morning, and it's just gone on from there.'

Roza said, 'I really can't now. The time ...' She gave a panicky half-laugh and gestured at the door.

Simon came closer. 'I'd hate you to have to make another appointment.'

He was suddenly very clear about this. For a moment he'd felt relieved that she was backing off - he wouldn't have to face her. But no, he wasn't going through another minute wondering what she wanted.

Roza hesitated.

He said, 'Right. Clarice, perhaps you could see if Denis has an appointment in the next few days.'

He turned smoothly to Roza, 'Denis Weintraub, one of my partners. He might have a slot for you tomorrow, Ms ...?'

Roza blinked, as though he'd slapped her. She smoothed her hair distractedly. 'No,' she muttered. 'It's all right. It'll be fine.'

'Are you sure? It's no problem to ...'

'Yes, no, yes.'

He ushered her in, glancing at Clarice, who gave him her special poker-faced look that expressed, by the holding of the gaze, solidarity. He raised his eyebrows at her, went in and shut the door.

'Have a seat.' He was able to look at Roza calmly. By forcing the issue, he had regained control.

She sat with her handbag primly on her knees, holding the handle with both hands. She was agitated, dark under the eyes, and he felt a kind of amazement at the sight of her in the familiar, clinical order of his consulting room, so beautiful and frazzled, so harried out of her mind.

'Why send me to your partner?' she said angrily, turning her eyes on him. 'I came to see you.'

He didn't reply.

'Well?' she demanded.

'Tell me what you want, Roza. Tell me what this is all about.'

'But why ...?' She paused, biting her lip. She put her handbag on the floor, then reached over and straightened some papers on his desk, her movements quick and nervous. She glanced up, saw him looking at her hands, and blushed.

He said, with a hint of iron, 'Roza, the receptionist's out there. We can't take too long. What is it you want to tell me? Do you have a problem I can help you with? Some symptoms? Something you're worried about? Why are we here?'

She looked stunned by his tone, then angry. She sat mute, glaring.

'Roza, this is my work. You can't just sit here.'

Her voice went high. 'All right. All right. Give me a minute.'