Ruth nods, concentrating on moderating the speed of her gesture, to stave off any nausea or spinning it might bring on. She must be careful. She’s let herself get drunk, which wasn’t her intention.
She’s been trying to imagine how Emily will look in ten years’ time. Will she keep her looks? She’ll get work done, of course. Not that it’s helped Paul, much. He’s looked strained and tired lately, apparently in spite of the cosmetic enhancements. Toby remarked on it. Ruth remembers because she thought it would be nice if he noticed how tired she was.
She suspects Emily and Paul have embarked on a course of aesthetic treatments together. Emily’s teeth are not the imperfect, stained set she had when Paul first met her. Money has been spent.
And why not, if you’ve got it, Ruth supposes, with bitterness. She’s jealous of Paul and Emily’s money. She and Toby never have enough. They borrowed too heavily to buy their home and it’s always been a struggle to keep up repayments. Especially now, with childcare costs.
She tries not to think of the fact that she might lose her job. The email she got from the partners mentioned that colleagues and surgery staff had noticed worrying things about her behavior, and practice. They worried about the impact on patients and wanted to meet with her, to discuss any difficulties she might be experiencing, whether she considers herself fit to work.
Maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she quit, she thinks. Maybe they sell the house, move somewhere cheaper and she looks after Alfie full-time. Maybe she and Alfie leave Toby behind. But then she’d need to work. There’s no easy answer.
She tries to remember if Toby ever talked realistically about having a child before Alfie came along. She doesn’t think he did. In her mania to consult written material about babies, to prepare herself to be the best mother she could be, she never thought to ask what he was expecting, or experiencing.
“He’s jealous,” she says.
“What?”
Ruth didn’t realize she’d spoken aloud. How long has Jayne been standing in the doorway? She looks nice.
“He’s jealous of what?” Jayne asks. “And who is ‘he’?”
Ruth sighs. She’s going to say it. “Toby is jealous of the baby.” Her eyelids feel heavy when she blinks. Jayne looks nice because she’s changed her outfit. It must be dinnertime, nearly. Time they ate something. She should do the same. Change. She picks at the hem of her cardigan. It’s the one she traveled in. There’s a little baby sick on the shoulder that she noticed when they were in the car. Where was she?
“I fell in love with Alfie right after he was born, it was ferocious, did I ever tell you how ferocious that feeling is, and Toby didn’t fall in love. I kept waiting for it to happen, but it never did. He had a big emotion, he felt something huge, but it wasn’t the one he was supposed to have. It was the green-eyed monster.” She draws the words out, mimes the horror with wide eyes and clawed fingers. “He hates his son,” she says. A conclusion that sounds true now that she’s said it. She drinks to moisten her mouth, which feels dry, replaces her glass on the table with too much force.
“No. Surely he doesn’t. Don’t talk like this. You don’t mean it.” Jayne sits beside her friend. Ruth pours wine into another glass and pushes it toward Jayne in a wobbly operation.
“I really mean it. And do you know how hard it is to admit it?” Is Jayne really going to minimize this, too? Ruth’s mouth settles into an expression of obstinacy.
Jayne is alarmed by Ruth’s words because in no way does this resemble the Ruth she knows, but also irritated because this looks and sounds like drunken self-pity. Ruth’s escalation into inebriation has been rapid. She’s slurring her words.
It’s almost as if Emily was plying her with wine while Jayne was upstairs. Would she do that? But perhaps Ruth doesn’t need anybodyelse to ply her with drink. She can do it well enough herself. Emily is still at the window, her back to the others.
“The rain really is easing,” she says. “Finally.”
“Can we talk about that?” Jayne says. “I think even if the rain eases it’s too dangerous to go down. Really, it’s getting too dark already and everything must be flooded.”
Ruth gets up and fumbles with the oven knobs. “I need to eat,” she says. “Is this on?”
Jayne nods and Ruth puts the tray of mashed potato into the oven, slamming the door shut. She fumbles to open a large packet of crisps and pours them into a bowl, capturing and eating the escapees that tumble across the surface as if she’s starving.
“You said you’d come with me if the rain stopped,” Emily says.
“I did, but I meant when there’s plenty of light left.”
Emily glances at the time on the oven display. “It’s nearly seven. It won’t get dark for, what, another hour or so?”
Dusk starts at 19:45, Jayne knows because she looked it up before they traveled here, but she bluffs a little. “Dusk is in half an hour. But I mean, look out there, it might as well be dusk already.”
Emily can barely contain her upset. She’s been waiting, and checking the weather, and waiting some more while Ruth gets drunker, and Jayne pretends it’s not happening and now her chance to go is surely almost here and Jayne is refusing?
“You promised,” she says.
“I never promised.”
Ruth looks from Jayne to Emily and back again, as it dawns on her that their voices are raised.
“Crisp?” she asks, holding up the bowl.
