by Carmen Reid
The man repeated: ‘There are cameras. And you have been in the car park for almost three hours.’
‘Gimme a break,’ River said and went into the store.
It was a happy twenty minutes or so later that she got to the checkout with a basket full of ingredients for the gourmet dinner that she had decided to cook, not just for herself, but to invite Dave along to as well. Surely he couldn’t be eating well in that shed. What did he cook on? A camping stove? And yes, she had noticed the regular Deliveroo drivers pulling up at the front of the house, but then, as no doubt instructed, going round to the back. So she had bought steaks and veggies and big potatoes to slice into fries. Two bottles of hearty Bordeaux, butter, eggs and slabs of dark chocolate, so she could make chocolate mousse. And she would pick up a fresh pack of twenty Marlboros from the prohibition-style kiosk where they handed out cigarettes from behind metal shutters. Now this was going to be dinner!
She would send Dave a message from the car: ‘Cancel your Deliveroo, I bought two steaks and I’m cooking one of them up for you.’
As she approached the car, bags in hand, she could see the big yellow and black sticker on the windscreen. And all that cheerful bonhomie that had built up during her food shop immediately disappeared in a puff of fury. That guy! That guy had booked her. She immediately began to scan the car park, but there was no sign of him.
This was too much. She clicked open the trunk and set her bags down inside. She was a familiar and seething mess of fury, disappointment and frustration. She certainly didn’t think Franklyn was dealing with anything as annoying as this today. Freaking Franklyn and his perfect life and his perfect family and his astonishing success.
And then that feeling was stealing up on her, the one she did almost anything to avoid, the low, chilling creep that nothing was going to go right for her, and everything was always going to be a mess. But she just couldn’t allow herself to spiral down because she could get lost in the feeling, drown in it and not know how to find her way back to shore.
‘Oh God, Drew.’ She allowed herself a brief moment. ‘I really miss you. And life is such a pain in the ass sometimes.’
And there was only one way to nip that feeling in the bud. She searched inside the grocery bag until she found what she was looking for, then taking aim, she pelted a fresh egg at the parking notice. As it splatted straight into the middle of the sign and then slowly began to slide down the metal, the satisfying burn of anger expressed kindled a heat in her heart and soul again.
‘Fuck you,’ she told the sign. Then she ripped the ticket from the windscreen, tossed it to the ground and drove out of the place.
23
‘What do you think about this idea… I go to a cool, LA hair salon for a makeover? Do you think that would be a good idea? Or is it a mad idea? It’s definitely going to be a very expensive idea.’
‘Yes, Mum, do it!’ Natalie enthused. ‘Definitely!’
Tess was on a sunny bench, with the panting dogs at her feet, watching people go in and out of a salon. She liked the look of this salon because there were bold black and white headshots in the window, displayed beside two big pieces of graffiti art. One thing she hadn’t expected about LA was all the colour-explosion graffiti: entire building walls taken up with huge cartoon murals. Compared to the muted greys and greens of England, LA hit you in the face with neon shades of blue, pink and yellow. Everything felt noisier, brasher and brighter. At first, it had felt overwhelming, but Tess was beginning to find it energising. Even inspiring.
‘I’m loving the sunshine,’ she told Natalie. ‘I bet you are too.’
‘Totally.’
‘Doesn’t it make everything feel so much more cheerful and optimistic? I take my time in the sun… enjoy the walks, sit on the benches, soak up the rays. In England, we’re always rushing about to get out of the cold and the rain.’ Although, as she said those words, Tess thought of the corner in the Ambleside garden that she’d lovingly created with decking, comfortable chairs, the café table and the chimenea, so that they could take their time and enjoy the sun on the days when it shone.
‘And what about you, Natalie?’ she asked her daughter. ‘What’s happening? How’s the romance going?’
Natalie had to giggle down the line: ‘It’s lovely,’ she admitted, ‘he’s so lovely and I really, really like him.’
‘And is everything okay?’ Tess asked. ‘Is there anything you need to talk to me about, darling… because I’m a long way away but I’m always here for you, you know that, don’t you?’
‘Yes… I’m fine,’ Natalie insisted, ‘I’m taking care of myself.’
There was suddenly so much that Tess felt she wanted to say. First serious boyfriends… first lovers… there was so much that mothers needed to tell daughters, that the experienced needed to pass on to the inexperienced. From small things to really major things, you couldn’t just not mention them because it was a bit awkward and embarrassing. This was Natalie, one of the great loves of Tess’s life.
‘I’m really not good at sex talks…’ Tess began.
‘Noooooo, Mum,’ Natalie protested.
‘But I always wanted to be and I’m just going to have to keep giving this a go, honey… so hear me out for a few minutes, okay?’
‘Muuuum, there is the internet, you know.’
‘Yes, of course, there is the internet! But the internet doesn’t love you to pieces; the internet didn’t nurture you from a tiny baby to the lovely young person you are now!’
‘True.’
‘Okay, here goes… I’m quite glad we’re on the phone now. And maybe you know all of this already… but I’m going to go for it anyway because I love you. Okay, there’s contraception, of course, you have to do that, you can’t take chances, and please make sure you’re doing what’s right for you. If you want you can talk over the pros and cons of…’
‘No, that’s fine, Mum, honestly.’
‘But also,’ Tess went on, summoning her courage, ‘I want you to know that sex should always feel great and it should always be about what you want to do. Yes, when you start it’s pretty awkward and fumbly and… lubrication, the stuff that comes in a tube, is your friend…’
Natalie squeaked and Tess could feel herself blush, she couldn’t believe she was saying this out loud to her daughter, but she realised she had to; she wanted to – this was an act of real love, so she carried on: ‘It should always be what you want to do and it has to feel right to you. Everyone you’re with has to know that and respect that. And you get to say all the time, all the way through, what you like and want. Sex is nothing like they show on screen, where women just lie there and men are amazing and know exactly what to do and it’s perfect every time. No… it’s much more like… dancing… learning to dance together and finding out what kind of dances you like.’
Tess was pleased with herself for coming up with that. Yes, that was right. It did take time to really work out what you and your partner wanted and what you were both good at. And sometimes you had to try some new dances too.
‘And sometimes you have to try new… dances,’ she added, ‘and sometimes no one wants to dance at all.’
Her and Dave, she thought… on opposite ends of the dance floor pretending that it didn’t matter, but it did. It mattered a lot. Could it ever be solved? Or were they only going to have sex again if they found new people to be with?
‘Are you finished?’ Natalie wondered.
‘No, one other thing… drink lots of water and take showers with gentle soap. Sex can give you bladder infections and they are zero fun.’
‘Are you finished now?’ Natalie asked.
Tess felt both a sense of relief and quite proud of herself. Yes, she had covered the major points… and it hadn’t been too bad. Importantly, she’d paved the way for future conversations. ‘I’m sure I’ll think of other things and then I’ll send you embarrassing emails or phone at awkward times to tell you,’ she told her daughter.
‘Okay!’ wa
s Natalie’s first response, followed by a shy: ‘Thanks, Mum.’
‘You can talk to me any time, about anything, even if it is awkward,’ Tess told her. ‘We’ll get through it. And I love you.’
‘What about Alex?’ Natalie asked next. ‘I haven’t spoken to him for weeks. How is he getting on?’
‘I saw him in London… but I’ve not got him on the phone since then.’
‘He’s so weird,’ Natalie said, and Tess immediately protested, ‘but he is,’ Natalie insisted, ‘everything’s always such a big secret. He never tells us about anything.’
‘Hmmm…’ Tess wasn’t really agreeing. She knew Alex well enough to know that it hadn’t always been like this. As a little boy, he’d loved to tell you about everything, he’d chatted away constantly and enjoyed making everyone laugh. He always wanted to share all the details of the book he’d read, the model he’d built, the joke he’d learned in the playground – even if it wasn’t exactly suitable for mummy ears.
He’d been open and engaging and engaged. And somehow, that side of him had shut down around about sixteen or seventeen. ‘It’s just a phase,’ she’d told herself back then, ‘he’s going through teenage stuff. He’s angsting. I just have to stand by and be supportive and he’ll come out the other side.’
And then, out of the blue, Alex’s final year at school had been a near disaster. Just when it looked like he was going to do really badly in all his A Levels, they’d had to swoop in, with tutors and supervised study… and all those angry rows and recriminations. It had been horrible. Then he’d gone to uni in Birmingham and seemed to be happy-ish, but never as happy as before. And in his final uni year, the same drama – stress and panic mixed with this weird apathy that he didn’t care about exams, didn’t care about studying, didn’t really care about anything, and they’d had to step in again. They’d brought him home and helped with his studying again and just looked after him so that he could get the work done and not have to think about much else. Then half a year after uni, he’d gone to this job, which was a good job and she would be very pleased for him and proud, if she could just believe that it was what he wanted and that he was happy there.
Here they were, almost seven years since he was a carefree fifteen-year-old, and still there was a whole part of Alex that she didn’t feel she could come anywhere near.
How did he feel? She didn’t really know.
How was life going for him? ‘Fine,’ he would reply in that flat voice that wasn’t his real voice. Was this just a sort of apathetic teenage/cynical voice that he’d put on as a teen and now couldn’t seem to shake off again. He’d been so enthusiastic about things, so able to light her and Dave up with his passions, interests and discoveries. She’d thought he would do something interesting in science. She’d thought he would love uni, find himself and come to life again, earnestly discussing things deep into the night with fellow souls.
But actually, Alex had found uni disappointing and discouraging: an endless to-do list with stressy deadlines around assignments, projects, essays and exams. With his job, the same apathy, dullness, and lack of energy prevailed. What did he really want? She didn’t know. What was he really thinking? No matter how she tried, she couldn’t get him to tell her.
‘I’ll phone him,’ she assured her daughter. ‘I’ll track him down and find out what is going on.’
‘And what about your hair, Mum?’ Natalie asked. ‘Just go to the funky salon, but promise me you won’t go blonde. Absolutely no middle-aged blonde lady moment for you, okay?’
Tess laughed at this. ‘But I’m so brunette, I am a dyed-in-the-wool, literally, brunette. Okay, love you. Don’t get sunburned, or heart-broken.’
‘No and no and love you too, Mum.’
Tess considered the salon for a few more moments. She decided that just walking in, hair bundled up in a scrunchy, wearing the floral English summer dress and with the big hairy dogs, probably wasn’t an option. Someone terrifying in toothpick jeans would probably eviscerate her with a sweep of their disdainful eyes and a flick of their hair.
So instead, she decided to call and book an appointment. This turned out to be so much trickier than doing the same thing in the UK. There were so many more questions.
‘Do we know you? Have you been before? What is your hair like? What treatments do you want? What products do you use? What is your hair currently dyed with?’ And finally: ‘Well… we might have an opening in, like, four weeks’ time. Do you want to book that? And we can put you on the wait list. That means if anyone cancels, we call you, if you can come at short notice.’
Tess made a booking that was for the day before she was due to fly home and put her name down on the wait list.
Then she tried her son’s number and got voicemail once again: ‘Hello darling, it’s Mum. Can you just give me a little call back, please? I’m on the other side of the world. If you don’t phone, I’m just going to worry… and keep on phoning. So please, darling, just give me a call.’
For several long moments, she looked at her phone and willed him to call back. But it remained silent. She thought of all the times in the past when she’d freaked herself out about Alex’s lack of contact. And he had always been fine. There had always been a rational, although maybe thoughtless, explanation.
So, no, she wasn’t going to drive herself mad about his silence now.
24
‘That was a delicious, dee-licious steak!’ Dave told River, very appreciatively, ‘Where did you get it?’
‘Oh… some grocery store in town. They tried to give me a parking ticket,’ River admitted.
‘They’re very strict about parking in supermarket car parks, because of all the tourists. So what did you do?’ Dave asked.
‘Swore, ripped it up and threw an egg at the parking sign.’
Dave, who was full of good food and had drunk the best part of a bottle of red, roared with laughter at this news.
‘Well, ten out of ten for doing what everybody wants to do,’ he said, ‘but you might find that what with the car having a number plate and the car park having cameras, that the parking ticket comes to us in the post anyway, so I’ll look out for that.’
‘Oh, I didn’t think of that,’ River said in all honesty and cast her mind to a pile of paperwork on her desk in LA. ‘Important admin’, aka ‘things she never really bothered about too much unless it was a red hot, steaming emergency’, in which case, people usually called loudly, or sent letters clearly marked DO NOT IGNORE.
‘Okay, I’m going to make coffee,’ she said, ‘and then you’re going to tell me all about your painting. Have you started yet? How’s it going? What are you painting? I want all the deets…’
As River came back into the garden carrying a tray with cups and the cafetière full of steaming full-strength, she saw that he had drained the wine bottle and refilled his glass.
‘Such a lush,’ she ticked him off.
‘Yes, I know.’
‘And you didn’t even ask if I wanted more?’
‘Oh my God… I’m so sorry. I’m so used to being the one that drinks all the wine…’
‘Okay… I will think about forgiving you. So… the painting?’
‘Well, I’ve started,’ he announced. ‘I just picked up a canvas and a brush and started… like you said. You’ve just got to begin somewhere. So I created a plain blue square. And then I added different shades of blue, so many different shades. And then I moved on to other little pieces of canvas until I felt the courage to tackle a big one. And now I’m surrounded by all these pictures of blue, all different sizes, and shades and textures. I’m getting quite excited about textures of paint again, layering, and laying it on thickly, pulling the brush through it. I love paint!’ he enthused.
‘In fact, I love all of this. I genuinely have not had so much fun to myself for years. If you’d told me how much I was going to enjoy this, I would never have believed you. I genuinely feel young again,’ Dave said with a grin. ‘I’m sloughing off the
daddy years… and the teacher stress. I’m remembering what it’s like to feel creative and excited again… and oh, my goodness, listen to me. I better have some more coffee, because this is clearly the wine talking… or gushing, more like.’
River was laughing. ‘That’s great!’ she said. ‘When it flows, when everything’s going well with the creative process, it’s amazing… but I’m sure you know the dark and difficult side of it too.’
‘You know, I was still in my twenties when I was last doing this and I don’t know if I did have much of the dark side. Maybe I’m just too much of an optimist, too much of a happy person in general.’
‘Lucky you,’ was River’s verdict on this, ‘So…’ she poured out two cups of coffee, ‘I had quite the day in Stratford today… guess who I bumped into in Shakespeare’s house?’
‘The bard himself?’ Dave joked.
‘No, someone possibly even more well known…’
‘No!’ Dave was wide-eyed now. ‘Not Franklyn Gregory?’
‘Oh yes, Franklyn Gregory himself, in all his glory.’
And River went on to tell Dave about the encounter in detail.
‘How did it feel to see him again…’ Dave wanted to know. ‘I mean, I take it, it’s been a while?’
‘Yes… it has been quite a few years. And I thought I was kind of fine about it… but afterwards, well… that’s when I was throwing angry eggs around the car park.’
‘But why?’ Dave had to ask.
‘Why? Why am I angry? Because…’ River teased a cigarette out of her brand-new packet and after lighting it, said: ‘He just wasn’t that special. He was a good actor and he worked hard at it, but why did the world choose him?’