Never Mind Miss Fox by Olivia Glazebrook Page B

difficult—”
    â€œI know what she said.”
    That voice! Gravel thrown at a window.
    Clive shut his eyes and continued, dogged, on his path. “Anyway, let’s go away. Shall we? For a break. And some sleep. We could go to Wales, do some walking.”
    â€œWales?” she laughed. “Yes, when I’m sitting here with the baby I dream of going to Wales and walking up mountains.”
    Clive took a deep breath. “Well, what would you like to do instead?”
    He knew she would not reply. This was where the conversation always ended. They both knew what Martha wanted but the words were too terrible to be said and instead hung in the air like the smell of her tobacco smoke: I want to run away; I want to leave you both; I want to have my life again.
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    She had run away once, but had come back crying in the morning to find Clive and Eliza breakfasting together as if she had never existed. Both had looked round, when they heard the door, with the same expression: cold and disappointed. It was the way her father had looked when she had come home from school with any grade less than an “A.”
    â€œI knew you’d be back,” Clive had said. He had not meant to reassure but to punish. “Take over, will you?” He had put down Eliza’s plastic spoon, got to his feet and left, shutting the door behind him with a careful click that said, I can keep my temper.
    The room had settled to quiet after his departure, mother and daughter staring at each other in silence. She doesn’t know me, Martha thought, panicking. Then had come what she dreaded most, much more than not being recognized: Eliza had widened her eyes, trembled, glanced at the door and begun to cry in loud, dragging caws like a hungry rook abandoned in its nest.
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    These were the punishing moments that Clive did not see—moments that stretched into hours and days—when just to be alone with her mother seemed enough to make Eliza desperate and unhappy.
    She hates me. Martha could not keep this thought out. It circled her mind and came swooping in, plunging from the sky, when it found a way. It was a mad, stabbing thought! How could it be true? But it felt true, and with Clive gone to New York she could feel the shadow of that dark bird, flick-flick-flicker, as it passed over the house.
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    Val had eyed her with Eliza once and said, “They’re very unrewarding, babies. It’s better when they get older.”
    Clive had protested, “How can you say that? Just seeing Eliza is rewarding.”
    Martha held her tongue. She wished she possessed Clive’s clarity of vision and, above all, his patience. He seemed to know everything about being a parent, and to find none of its duties dull.
    He even seemed to know exactly what was wrong with his wife. “You’re not depressed about having a baby,” he told her, as firm and decided as a doctor tapping an X-ray with his pen. “It’s because of your dad.” As well as a diagnosis, he had a cure: “Sell the cottage.” He said this once a month at least. “It’ll close that chapter. Then we can get a bigger flat, and you can get some help.”
    Martha kept her temper with difficulty, for this was the flame which could set to blazes a full-blown argument: when Clive wanted to work, he got up and went to work; when Martha wanted to work, she was told she had to “get some help” and pay for it herself.
    â€œThe cottage,” she said through gritted teeth, “is worth more to me than a flat with a second bathroom.”
    â€œWell,” Clive said, “if you won’t do that, then—” He spread his hands. If you won’t help yourself, then I can’t help you. Clive’s gesture was as familiar as his argument—they both repeated these assertions to each other once a month.
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    Clive had gone, now, in a taxi to the airport. He had pulled a wheeled