Close Relations by Deborah Moggach Page B

unhappiness seemed an adventure, a voyage into uncharted waters. Her grandchildren were growing up in a world that was largely incomprehensible to her. She had sat here in this suburban street; over the past years her main contact with the outside world had been the lads, her surrogate children, jostling into her office on payday and bringing tales of treacherous girlfriends and custody battles.
    She gazed at the caravan – curtained windows, shabby cream bodywork. What a symbol of freedom it had once seemed! All of a sudden she had an impulse to hitch it to the car and drive away – anywhere, anywhere but here. Chester. Aberystwyth. Somewhere she could see before it was too late. Drive off to a new life and see if anyone noticed.
    She didn’t, of course. Instead, wrinkling her nose, she stubbed out Gordon’s Marlboro. She thought that in all their years of marriage, her husband had never asked if she minded the smell of his cigarette smoke.
    â€˜The thing about adultery,’ said Prudence, ‘is that you have to snatch your moment and it’s always the wrong time of day. Like two in the afternoon, sitting in a freezing car. Or a quick grapple in the photocopying room at half past nine in the morning. The person they’re living with gets all the good times – the evenings, the nights, oh, the nights . . . the sunny Sundays in the park. As if they don’t have enough of them anyway. Seems so greedy of them.’
    â€˜Give him up then,’ said Maddy. ‘Seems stupid to me.’
    Prudence sighed. If only it were so simple. It was Wednesday evening. They were sitting in the basement flat in Tufnell Park, the place that had been lent to Maddy, eating takeaway pizza.
    â€˜Ditch him and find somebody else,’ said Maddy.
    â€˜You don’t understand.’
    â€˜No. I don’t.’
    â€˜If you were in my position –’
    â€˜I wouldn’t get into your position,’ said Maddy.
    â€˜No. Everything’s black and white to you, isn’t it.’ Prudence looked around. ‘Aren’t you going to unpack? It looks awful. Shall I help?’
    â€˜What’s the point?’
    â€˜Well, to make it look nice for yourself.’
    â€˜But I don’t mind.’
    â€˜There must be some other reason,’ said Prudence.
    â€˜What reason?’
    â€˜You can never find things.’
    â€˜But if I don’t need them I never look for them anyway.’
    Pru gave up. She looked out of the window. From this subterranean viewpoint only a strip of the street was visible – the pavement, the wheels of parked cars. Somewhere, childrenshouted.
    â€˜I always feel like this when I’ve been to Lou’s and Robert’s,’ she said. ‘Do you?’
    â€˜Feel what?’
    â€˜Like this.’ Suddenly she yelled. ‘
Men!
’
    Maddy closed the pizza box. ‘In the village I lived in, all the woman had clitoridectomies.’
    Prudence gazed at her sister. She got up and paced around the room. ‘I’m going to ring him up. Now. He’ll just be putting the boys to bed, having
quality time
with them, His horrible wife’ll be cooking supper, lamps lit, gin and tonic waiting. I’m going to phone him up and blow the whole thing apart.’
    â€˜Don’t be daft. Course you won’t.’
    â€˜How do you know?’
    â€˜I’m your sister,’ said Maddy.
    Prudence smiled. How quickly they had slipped back into their old relationship. She admired Maddy – she was simple and direct, there was something morally upstanding about her. But she also irritated Prudence. Despite her adventures in foreign countries, despite her physical bravery, she was so untested.
    Prudence made her way past the slumped plastic bags belonging to the owner of the flat, past the detritus of someone else’s life amongst which Maddy seemed content to live. She went into the kitchen. A batik hanging failed to