5 PM
TONI had been sleeping heavily for an hour when her alarm clock woke her.
She found that she was lying on the bed fully dressed. She had been too tired even to take off her jacket and shoes. But the nap had refreshed her. She was used to odd hours, from working night shifts in the police force, and she could fall asleep anywhere and wake up instantly.
She lived on one floor of a subdivided Victorian house. She had a bedroom, a living room, a small kitchen, and a bathroom. Inverburn was .1 ferry port, but she could not see the sea. She was not very fond of her home: it was the place to which she had fled when she broke up with Frank, and it had no happy memories. She had been here two years, but she still regarded it as temporary.
She got up. She stripped off the business suit she had been wearing for two days and a night, and dumped it in the dry-cleaning basket. With a robe on over her underwear, she moved rapidly around the flat, packing a case for five nights at a health spa. She had planned to pack last night and leave at midday today, so she had some catching up to do.
She could hardly wait to get to the spa. It was just what she needed. Her woes would be massaged away; she would sweat out toxins in the sauna; she would have her nails painted and her hair cut and her eyelashes curled. Best of all, she would play games and tell stories with a group of old friends, and forget her troubles.
Her mother should be at Bella's place by now. Mother was an intelligent woman who was losing her mind. She had been a high school math teacher, and had always been able to help Toni with her studies, even when Toni was in the final year of her engineering degree. Now she could not check her change in a shop. Toni loved her intensely and was deeply saddened by her decline.
Bella was a bit slapdash. She cleaned the house when the mood took her, cooked when she felt hungry, and sometimes forgot to send her children to school. Her husband, Bernie, was a hairdresser, but worked infrequently because of some vague chest ailment. "The doctor's signed me off for another four weeks," he would usually say in response to the routine inquiry "How are you?"
Toni hoped Mother would be all right at Bella's place. Bella was an amiable slattern, and Mother never seemed to mind her ways. Mother had always been happy to visit the windy Glasgow council estate and eat undercooked fries with her grandchildren. But she was now in the early stages of senility. Would she be as philosophical as ever about Bellas haphazard housekeeping? Would Bella be able to cope with Mothers increasing waywardness?
Once when Toni had let slip an irritated remark about Bella, Mother had said crisply, "She doesn't try as hard as you, that's why she's happier." Mother's conversation had become tactless, but her remarks could be painfully accurate.
After Toni had packed, she washed her hair then took a bath to soak away two days of tension. She fell asleep in the tub. She woke with a start, but only a minute or so had passed—the water was still hot. She got out and dried herself vigorously.
Looking in the full-length mirror, she thought, I've got everything I had twenty years ago—it's all just three inches lower. One of the good things about Frank, at least in the early days, had been the pleasure he took in her body. "You've got great tits," he would say. She thought they were too large for her frame, but he worshipped them. "I've never seen a * this color," he once told her as he lay between her legs. "It's like a ginger biscuit." She wondered how long it would be before someone else marveled at the color of her pubic hair.
She dressed in tan jeans and a dark green sweater. As she was closing her suitcase, the phone rang. It was her sister. "Hi, Bella," said Toni. "How's Mother?"
"She's not here."
"What? You were supposed to pick her up at one o'clock!"
"I know, but Bernie had the car and I couldn't get away."
"And you still haven't left?" Toni looked at her watch. It was half past live. She pictured Mother at the home, sitting in the lobby in her coat and hat, with her suitcase beside the chair, hour after hour, and she felt cross. "What are you thinking of?"
"The thing is, the weather's turned bad."
"It's snowing all over Scotland, but not heavily."
"Well, Bernie doesn't want me to drive sixty miles in the dark."
"You wouldn't have had to drive in the dark if you'd picked her up when you promised!"
"Oh, dear, you're getting angry, I knew this would happen."
"I'm not angry—" Toni paused. Her sister had caught her before with this trick. In a moment they would be talking about Toni managing her anger, instead of Bella breaking a promise. "Never mind how I feel," Toni said. "What about Mother? Don't you think she must be disappointed?"
"Of course, but I can't help the weather."
"What are you going to do?"
"There isn't anything I can do."
"So you're going to leave her in the home over Christmas?"
"Unless you have her. You're only ten miles away."
"Bella, I'm booked into a spa! Seven friends are expecting me to join them for five days. I've paid four hundred pounds deposit and I'm looking forward to a rest."
"That sounds a bit selfish."
"Just a minute. I've had Mother the last three Christmases, but I'm selfish?"
"You don't know how hard it is with three children and a husband too ill to work. You've got plenty of money and only yourself to worry about."
And I'm not stupid enough to marry a layabout and have three children by him, Toni thought, but she did not say it. There was no point in arguing with Bella. Her way of life was its own punishment. "So you're asking me to cancel my holiday, drive to the home, pick up Mother, and look after her over Christmas."
"It's up to you," Bella said in a tone of elevated piety. "You must do what your conscience tells you."
"Thanks for that helpful advice." Toni's conscience said she should be with their mother, and Bella knew that. Toni could not let Mother spend Christmas in an institution, alone in her room, or eating tasteless turkey and lukewarm sprouts in the canteen, or receiving a cheap present in gaudy wrapping from the home's caretaker dressed as Santa Claus. Toni did not even need to think about it. "All right, I'll go and fetch her now."
"I'm just sorry you couldn't do it more graciously," said her sister.
"Oh, fuck off, Bella," said Toni, and she hung up the phone.
Feeling depressed, she called the spa and canceled her reservation. Then she asked to speak to one of her party. After a delay, it was Charlie who came to the phone. He had a Lancashire accent. "Where are you?" he said. "We're all in the Jacuzzi—you're missing the fun!"
"I can't come," she said miserably, and she explained.
Charlie was outraged. "It's not fair on you," he said. "You need a break."
"I know, but I can't bear to think of her on her own in that place when others are with their families."
"Plus you've had a few problems at work today."
"Yes. It's very sad, but I think Oxenford Medical has come through it all right—provided nothing else happens."
"I saw you on the telly."
"How did I look?"
"Gorgeous—but I fancied your boss."
"Me, too, but he's got three grown-up children he doesn't want to upset, so I think he's a lost cause."
"By heck, you have had a bad day."
"I'm sorry to let you all down."
"It won't be the same without you."
"I'll have to hang up, Charlie—I'd better fetch Mother as soon as possible. Happy Christmas." She cradled the handset and sat staring at the phone. "What a miserable life," she said aloud. "What a miserable bloody life."