Madame Doubtfire Read online

  ‘Worse?’

  ‘Yes. Worse. Hatred and arguments and all that ugly, ugly stuff.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Daniel. ‘Ugly stuff.’ He paused, remembering. Then he asked: ‘Did you tell her this?’

  ‘No. No, I didn’t. I would have tried, but she wasn’t listening. She was too angry and upset.’

  ‘With me.’

  ‘And me.’ She rose, and moved across to the window and stared out, her hands thrust deep down in the pockets of her winter coat. It didn’t really suit her, Daniel decided. The pattern was too strong, and it made her look frumpish. She looked much nicer in the one Miranda bought.

  ‘How did you get here?’ he asked her.

  ‘I had a fight. She did’t want me to come. She called me disloyal. She said you’d forfeited your right to a visit today.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  Lydia turned. Her eyes were filled with tears. She looked exhausted.

  ‘I told her I was not going to live my life between the two of you any more, thinking about her rights and yours. I told her I thought I had rights of my own, and from now on you two had better start thinking of mine.’

  Daniel’s eyes widened.

  ‘What did she say when you said that?’

  ‘I didn’t actually say it,’ confessed Lydia. ‘I yelled it.’

  ‘And she said – ?’

  ‘Yelled.’

  ‘Yelled – ?’

  ‘That I couldn’t go. That I was in too much of a state.’

  ‘And you said –’

  ‘Yelled. I yelled that…’ She hesitated. Her voice was shaking at the memory. ‘I yelled at her that, if she didn’t let me go today, she would regret it.’

  ‘Regret it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Daniel looked thoughtful.

  ‘What did you have in mind, exactly, when you told her that?’

  Lydia turned back to the window.

  ‘I’m not quite sure,’ she told him. ‘I’m not quite sure. But she should know – it’s time she knew – that you can order someone about, and still not win. You can control them, and still lose them. If she would only stop and think, she’d realize that.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Daniel. ‘And when she stops and thinks, she’s going to realize that. Don’t you worry.’

  Lydia sighed. Shutting her eyes, she lifted a hand to rub the skin between her eyes.

  ‘And then I just went down to the basement and fetched this coat, and then I walked outside and caught the first bus into the centre of town.’

  ‘And came here on your own steam.’

  ‘It took a bit of time. But I did it.’ She blushed a little. ‘Though I did forget my bus fare. My purse was in the other coat, you see. I never thought. The driver was so nice, though. He let me off the fare. He said I wasn’t the first person to forget her money today, either. He said some senile old lady did exactly the same, this very afternoon, on the same route.’

  ‘Senile old lady?’ Daniel was momentarily outraged on the late Madame Doubtfire’s behalf. ‘Senile old lady?’

  Then he stood up, and walked over to his daughter’s side. Gently, he slid the hideous, bulky winter coat off her shoulders.

  ‘You look worn out,’ he told her as he steered her towards the sofa. ‘Why don’t you have a little rest?’

  ‘I could,’ she confessed. ‘I’m very tired. I’m so tired I could sleep through vacuuming.’

  He left the room and, pulling the door closed behind him, dialled Miranda’s number. There was no answer.

  When he came back with the blankets, her eyes were closed.

  She did sleep through the vacuuming. And she slept through the wiping of the kitchen cabinets, and the polishing of the mirrors. She slept through the emptying of the waste-paper baskets and the fixing of the bookshelf. She slept through the straightening of the window blinds.

  Then Natalie woke her up, by bursting through the front door clutching a large plastic bag to her stomach, and rushing through the flat poking her head into each room, and shouting:

  ‘Dadd – eee!’

  Daniel emerged from his freshly-gleaming lavatory.

  ‘Surprise, surprise!’ he exclaimed. ‘And is Christopher with you?’

  ‘He’s coming up, with Mum.’

  Miranda and Christopher appeared together in the doorway. Christopher looked quite himself again – indeed, he looked almost merry – but Miranda’s eyes were red-rimmed, and her face was still pale.

  Daniel and Miranda eyed one another nervously.

  ‘Hello, Dan.’

  ‘Hello there, Miranda.’ He searched for words. ‘It’s nice of you to drive them over here, considering…’

  ‘Well,’ she said, embarrassed. ‘It is Tuesday.’ She still looked very shaken, he decided. ‘And they insisted.’

  ‘None the less,’ Daniel said. ‘Given the circumstances…’

  And they both blushed.

  ‘Please,’ Daniel begged her. ‘Stay for a quick cup of tea. You look so white. I don’t like to think of you driving back just yet.’

  ‘Well –’ She was doubtful. ‘I don’t know…’

  ‘Yes,’ Christopher ordered. ‘You look as though you’ve been put through the wringer. Stay and have one nice cup of tea, with Dad.’

  ‘Oh, I –’

  ‘Good!’ Daniel said. ‘Splendid. Come through.’

  On the way into the kitchen he flapped his arms in a desperate fashion at Christopher, behind her back, signalling his son to herd Natalie away, and keep Lydia out, and leave the two of them in peace. With the most haughty expression he could muster, Christopher cooperated. He found his father’s frantic dumb-show insulting and demeaning. Leaving both parents alone together was what he had intended all the time.

  Miranda tried to disguise her initial unease by admiring his cleaning efforts.

  ‘You’ve done so much! It looks a lot better. I’m sorry if I was rude about your flat, but it had got in such a state.’

  ‘You were quite right,’ Daniel assured her. ‘It was disgusting.’

  Miranda’s eyes touched lightly on the shears, still sitting open-jawed on the stool.

  ‘May I?’ she asked politely.

  She lifted them off, snapped the blades shut, and tipped them more safely, points down in the corner.

  ‘Please,’ Daniel reassured her. ‘Please do. I think I need all the help I can get.’

  Miranda sighed.

  ‘Maybe we both do.’ She passed him the tea caddy, and stood beside him as he warmed the pot. ‘Not that I’m suggesting for a single moment that I want Madame Doubtfire back.’

  ‘She’s dead,’ Daniel informed her. He looked out of the window. The dustbins had been emptied. ‘She’s dead and gone.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sorry.’

  ‘Neither am I.’ He lowered his head, pouring the boiling water on the tea leaves. ‘But I am sorry that we all deceived you. It was a rotten thing to do.’

  ‘Maybe I should have been a bit more reasonable.’ She waved her hands around. ‘But really, you see, I didn’t want them here. Not with…’ Her voice trailed away. Her eyes touched lightly on the safely placed shears, and came to rest on his frayed electrical lead.

  ‘No, I understand,’ Daniel said. ‘It was disgusting, and parts of it were actually unsafe. But now that I’m getting more organized, a lot of things are going to change around here, and if you see anything that makes you nervous, you let me know, and I’ll do what I can.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’

  He handed her a cup of tea. She took a sip.

  ‘Good,’ she said. ‘But not as good as Madame Doubt-fire’s tea.’

  ‘You,’ Daniel said just a little bit stiffly, ‘can afford to buy much better tea than I can.’

  Miranda was looking embarrassed again.

  ‘Listen, Daniel,’ she said. ‘I’ll be quite frank with you. I don’t want you back as a housekeeper, even as yourself. I know you did a good job; but I don
’t want you. I can’t explain it. It’s just how I feel. But maybe we could manage some sort of a compromise here. How would you like to earn a bit of money taking a job as my gardener? When it rains, you could let yourself into the house and make a pot of coffee and care for the plants inside. And if you worked in the late afternoons, you’d get to see the children, too.’

  She paused, and went bright red.

  ‘After all,’ she told him, ‘you are their father.’

  It didn’t take him any time at all to decide.

  ‘You’re on!’ he said, delighted. ‘Though I might dig my trench for the potatoes a little deeper than usual for the first couple of years, in case of sniping from the house.’ He dug into his pockets. ‘Here. Take these as a small token of my good faith and gratitude.’

  Into her hand, he thrust a dozen odd socks.

  ‘Oh, Daniel!’

  She was plainly moved as she shovelled the socks into her handbag. Daniel felt close to tears himself.

  ‘And I won’t phone at mealtimes any more.’

  ‘And I’ll stop getting irritable whenever you’re mentioned.’

  They smiled at one another.

  ‘Shake hands,’ he said.

  And they shook hands.

  ‘I won’t drive back and fetch them,’ she told him. ‘Unless they particularly want to come home. They can sleep over here, if that suits you, because they’re on strike still tomorrow, and I am going to need your help in any case. I have to leave for Matlock first thing in the morning.’

  ‘I’ll have them home when you get back.’

  ‘Thanks, Dan.’

  She leaned across, and kissed him lightly on the cheek.

  ‘Thanks, Dan,’ she said again, and hurried out.

  Daniel was still nursing his kiss with the palm of his hand when Christopher emerged.

  ‘Well,’ Christopher said, rubbing his hands together with satisfaction. ‘That went off well.’

  ‘Were you listening?’

  ‘Only a little. Not a lot.’

  ‘You’ve got a cheek,’ said Daniel. ‘It’s none of your business.’

  ‘None of my business?’ Christopher was outraged. ‘Who do you think it was got her to come round here? Who do you think it was went on and on at her, and wouldn’t do anything else, and wouldn’t drop the topic, and just kept saying over and over again that it was Tuesday and we wanted to come here? Me and Natty! That’s who!’

  ‘I’m very grateful,’ said Daniel. ‘It went off well.’

  ‘I knew it would.’

  ‘Oh, you,’ Daniel told him loftily. ‘You’re a child. It is a well known fact that children have in their nature an almost unlimited capacity for optimism and forgiveness.’

  ‘Lucky for you two!’ scoffed Christopher.

  ‘Too right,’ agreed Daniel. He, for one, was sincerely grateful.

  In the living room, Natty was waiting for him. She bounced up and down with excitement on the sofa, still clutching her precious plastic bag.

  ‘What have you got in there, then?’ asked Daniel.

  Proudly, very proudly, she drew out her most precious possession. It was the picture book – The Looking Glass River.

  ‘I’m going to keep it here now,’ she announced gravely. ‘Here in this home.’

  ‘You picked a good day to make this decision, Natalie,’ Daniel informed his daughter with equal gravity. ‘I fixed the bookshelf only this afternoon.’

  He sat on the sofa between Natalie and Lydia.

  ‘You can sleep over,’ he said. ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Yes,’ Christopher said promptly. ‘You bet.’

  Lydia considered a moment.

  ‘I think I’ll stay,’ she said, pulling the blankets up to her chin. ‘Yes, I think so. But tell her I’ll be happy to come home if she changes her mind.’

  ‘I’ll stay,’ said Natalie. ‘If Lydia stays.’

  ‘Right, then,’ said Daniel, reaching out for the book. ‘The Looking Glass River.’ Natalie crawled on to his knee and Christopher took her space, and sat fiddling quietly with his calculator, pretending not to listen. Lydia unashamedly snuggled further down under her blankets to enjoy the old story.

  ‘Hundreds of people have searched for the Looking Glass River,’ Daniel began to read. ‘Its waters are –’

  Outside, in the hall, the phone began to ring. The children tensed.

  ‘I’ll get it!’ Daniel cried, and leaped to his feet. He strode across the room and out, banging the door behind him. He lifted the receiver. Yes, it was Miranda.

  ‘Yes?’ he said warily. ‘Do you want them back?’

  ‘Oh, no!’ She brushed the very suggestion aside. ‘Oh, Daniel. I’ve just got home, and –’

  His voice warmed up.

  ‘What? Tell me, Miranda. What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Hetty. I just walked in, and she’s lying in her cage and her feet are –’ She stopped, and finished up: ‘Well, she’s dead.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Daniel said. ‘Was it a shock?’

  ‘No,’ said Miranda. ‘But it is a nuisance.’

  Down the line, Daniel could hear her sighing.

  ‘Daniel, will you do me a favour? Please? Will you tell them? I mean, you know me.’ She sighed again. ‘I’m just no good at telling them this sort of thing. I get impatient with all their tears and messy gravemarkers and stuff. I mean, when all’s said and done, a quail’s just a quail. And she was ancient.’

  Daniel looked up to the ceiling, and grinned.

  ‘Good old Miranda!’ he said, remembering with sudden force why he proposed to her in the first place all those years ago. ‘There’s my girl!’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Nothing. I mean, you’re dead right. A quail’s just a quail.’

  ‘But not to Christopher.’

  ‘No, not to him.’

  ‘So will you tell him? Please? You’re so much better than I am at that sort of thing.’

  ‘I’ll tell him,’ Daniel said. ‘I’ll tell him tomorrow.’

  ‘I think that’s best. Leave it until tomorrow. We’ve all had quite enough today.’

  ‘I won’t forget.’ He shifted his weight. ‘Now listen, Miranda. You’ve got a long drive ahead of you tomorrow. Just spread an old towel over the cage, and put it in the basement, and forget it. I’ll sort the whole business out tomorrow.’

  ‘Right.’ There was a pause, then: ‘Are they staying?’

  ‘Yes,’ Daniel told her. ‘Lydia was a little dubious. I think she rather wanted to be with you tonight…’

  ‘Oh!’

  She sounded pleased, and a little relieved.

  ‘But she’s a bit wiped out, so in the end she thought she’d stay, unless you change your mind and want her back.’

  ‘No, I won’t change my mind. I thought I’d just have one quick drink with Sam, and then a really early night.’

  ‘That worked out well, then,’ said Daniel. ‘You won’t need a sitter.’

  ‘And you won’t be alone, after the sad demise of your friend Madame Doubtfire.’

  Both of them hung up laughing.

  The children saw him walk in with the smile still on his face.

  ‘Who was that, then?’

  ‘Your mother.’

  ‘Really? What did she want?’

  ‘Just chatting,’ Daniel said. ‘Nothing that won’t wait. Where had we reached in the storybook, Natty?’

  She made him start all over again. He opened the book at the beginning. There was the river, flowing in cool blue and green across the first page. Gracefully, the willow trees leaned over their own reflections. The little cottages along its banks stood out in fresh, bright colours. In the clear skies overhead, swallows wheeled.

  ‘Hundreds of people have searched for the Looking Glass River,’ read Daniel. ‘Its waters are calm and still as glass. Anyone who drinks of its waters feels at peace. There are no quarrels in the families who live beside Looking Glass River…’

 
; He didn’t need to read it to keep going. He knew the whole story off by heart. He raised his eyes for a moment, and saw his two elder children grinning at one another.

  His youngest child just squeezed his hand.