they turned and glanced at her. She stared ahead, into her baby’s eyes, vague-faced under fair, bedraggled hair, blue circles under her own eyes, half smiling, bearing it.
When they were out of earshot, Gwen said, ‘She needs a good night’s sleep. I can remember being exactly like that with Will.’
‘What – a zombie? You have to tell me more about Will.’
‘My ultimate move?’ Gwen let the sarcasm sink in, but then she softened. ‘It was just like that, you know. He was my cox. That woman back there, me, any mother – we’re all galley slaves. You force the pushchair over the ruined paving, over whatever. Anything at all to keep the boat moving. The baby gives all the commands, shouts, shits, steers – whatever. Nothing else seems to matter. You can’t hear the world, don’t notice your husband. I guess from the baby’s point of view it must be like trying to control a giant: the monster mother. Scary. Uncertain. Which is maybe why the baby is so ruthless in its demands. And you submit to it. Willingly. You throw yourself down, betray the man you love, whatever it takes – to please the child. It’s a big deal. It’s crazy.’ She looked sideways at Hilary, half smiled with the slack corners of her heaving mouth. ‘I’m ranting, aren’t I?’
Hilary said, ‘We’ve been out a while. It can happen – with the exercise.’
‘Now. We have to go around this,’ said Gwen, gesturing up to high white walls and fences marked Fulham Football Club.
On they ran into the silent neighbourhood, between the staring front windows of empty, midday houses, a deserted newsagent’s, then weaved back once or twice to the north bank of the river, past outdoor lunches on pub terraces and gleaming café tables, laundry hanging out to dry, phlox spilling its clash of fuchsia over dark brick balconies above their heads, then at last back into the traffic, in rhythmic delirium, tired, surviving.
The growing feeling of comfort between Hilary and Gwen made it seem easy, in the end, to sit down for dinner with Lawrence and Roland a few days later. Gwen didn’t have to insist.
Will was still orbiting around his mother in the kitchen as she turned on the pair of gas burners underneath the shiny, submarine-shaped poaching pan, unwrapped the salmon, poked at the little potatoes rolling about in their cauldron. He managed to make himself the centre of everyone’s attention for a good half-hour after Roland arrived with Lawrence, so that the jittery business of greeting, introducing, pouring drinks, was made even more chaotic than usual.
Will had a stacking top: five individual tops which could be made to spin as one if they were wound up and dropped in precisely the right way – accurately, quickly – before any of them stopped spinning. One by one, hosts and guests got down on the floor, giggling, absorbed. Nobody could get beyond three tops piled up and spinning at once – until they started helping each other out. Gwen was fastest at winding the tops, but Will had the surest touch for stacking them. The little group fell silent when mother and son got four of the tops going together. Then Will, his heavily lashed green eyes hooded and still, dropped the last tiny top on the whirling stack. The sharp point of the big, fat top at the bottom buzzed loudly like a little drill against the polished wood as the stack leaned ever so slightly and began to inscribe a slow hard arc across the floor, moving faster, becoming more and more unstable, alarmingly angled. At last it shot under the kitchen table, struck one of the legs and blew apart.
A deflationary ‘Oh …’ seeped from them all, the air going out of their game.
Then Hilary cried out, ‘Look, they’re still going!’
‘Cool!’ squeaked Will. Because three of the tops had landed upright and went on spinning separately, moving freely over the floor.
‘Centripetal force,’ Roland observed in his deep, imperturbable voice.
‘Dead cool,’ Gwen said, smiling, rising to her feet. ‘We can do it all again tomorrow. Time for bed.’
She made no move to enforce this, but walked away to the stove, stuck a fork into the potatoes to see if they were cooked, then hefted them from the burner to the sink and poured the boiling water away.
Will grabbed up his tops, which were wobbling now as they spun themselves out, and took them to his father. ‘Daddy, will you wind them up one more time? Pu-leeeze?’
And so Lawrence did, and the game began again, but with more tension now that bedtime was looming; everyone’s hands were stiff and unsuccessful with it. The tops racketed crazily around the room, under the chairs, under the table, and Will fired the smaller ones carelessly at the bigger ones like bombs, laughing hilariously until he collapsed on the floor. His five-year-old stomach and its irresistible plughole of a belly button bulged unguarded where his striped pyjamas separated at the waist, and he was made the victim of a tough tickle from his father’s big, relentless fingers, until he was overcome, and screamed, ‘Stop, stop.’ His legs kicked ferociously as he lay on his back; his arms flailed and swatted.
Lawrence stopped.
Then Will screamed, ‘Do it again! Do it again!’ tears showing along the corners of his grin.
Gwen slipped the fish into the simmering pan and replaced the long lid. ‘C’mon, you guys. Bed.’
As Gwen moved with Will towards the door, Hilary said, ‘I could read Will a story?’
‘Do you want to?’ Gwen turned, grateful.
‘While you do the fish?’
‘The fish is OK, actually,’ said Gwen. ‘It has to cook for a few minutes.’
Will said, ‘I want Mummy to read me the story.’ He took hold of Gwen’s hand.
‘It’s going to be a short one, Will, since we’re having dinner.’
‘Two short ones?’ he said engagingly.
‘I can do the fish,’ said Lawrence. ‘And I’ll send Hilary to you in ten minutes if you haven’t reappeared. Don’t worry, darling.’
‘The spinach soufflé is in the oven. Keep an eye on it.’ Gwen had a foot on the bottom step.
‘G’night, Daddy,’ said Will, tipping a half-cupped palm in the air, a stilted wave, suddenly shy.
‘Night.’
The group in the kitchen, milling awkwardly around the table and the stove, turned back to the subject Roland had raised with Lawrence during their drive from Oxford to London – the question of whether Lawrence should be taking so much time from his big book on Greek and Roman slavery to be pursuing what Roland reckoned was a pretty tenuous connection between the Satyricon and Les Misérables.
Roland sidled up to Hilary, winking, conspiratorial. ‘I’ve been warning Lawrence off trying to be popular. He’s brewing up a scholarly piece on Les Mis. You must have seen Les Mis? Everyone has.’
‘Les Mis?’ she said, round-eyed. ‘The musical? I – well – I read the novel, years ago. But I don’t know any of the songs.’
‘You needn’t know the tunes,’ Lawrence assured her, tearing brown paper off a round, crusty
