When I neared the Mews main entrance, I decided to turn back towards Lordship Lane, by the row of shops and abandon the bike there. I’d had thoughts of smashing it, but that felt too destructive, and it was better that somebody benefited from Ifan’s misfortune.
The rage had evaporated by now; the cycle had exhausted it. All I was left with was overwhelming sadness. How had I got here, wreaking revenge when all I actually wanted was a loving relationship with someone wishing the same? Stealing the bike hadn’t actually changed anything. I was well aware navel-gazing wasn’t one of my strong points. Sometimes it set me apart from Amanda and Jacqui, who were great believers in all that introspection stuff. I would nod along when they went all zen and talked about letting things go and accepting the feelings as they came up, but I was different. I struggled to find quiet time peaceful. ‘Keep busy’ was my constant motto, deflect, distract, the complete opposite of what Amanda would do. ‘Sit in the pain,’ she always said. ‘Just be with it because you will learn from it.’ All I had learned from this was that I now felt like a twat, Ifan was still an arsehole, and that as well as being angry, I had also been insanely jealous at the sight of him kissing someone else. I knew it made no sense, but nothing about this did. Maybe the acceptance I needed was that I would never be like Amanda, able to be at one with all that shit. Even now, I felt I could still murder Jim on occasion if I really thought about it, which I tried so hard not to. Maybe my ‘progress’ with this break-up would be that in a year’s time I wouldn’t want to punch Ifan if we bumped into each other.
I dumped the bike on the corner by a tapas restaurant and walked up towards the dodgy fish-and-chip shop and the twenty-four-hour store that stocked everything you could possibly need during a zombie apocalypse or a party. Wine of the week was a constant highlight, usually something Romanian that doubled up as limescale remover. I spotted Francesca walking out of the convenience store with a bottle of said red wine and she waved.
‘So, you’ve been in hiding since you moved in,’ she commented as a way of greeting. I fell in with her stride as we idled up through the dark alleyway down the side of Terry’s Tool Hire to the Mews’ secret gate. How long until Ifan discovered my theft?
‘Yes. I’ve had a shit couple of weeks, to be honest, and didn’t feel like being sociable.’
‘You’re coming to my Easter Sunday lunch with Grace, though, aren’t you?’
I nodded as I tapped in the code. We pushed through the gate and both of us could hear frantic banging and shouting.
‘Shit, that sounds like Betsy,’ Francesca said. ‘Come on.’ She began to run past the Biffa bins and towards my house, where a young woman was hammering on our joint front door.
‘Elinor! Elinor!’
‘Betsy, what is it?’ Francesca shouted, reaching her just before I did.
‘Something’s wrong with Carl. He’s having a fit.’
‘Call an ambulance!’ Francesca ordered me. ‘Now!’ She rushed into the house next door where light flooded out onto the drive from the shared hallway.
I rang 999 and asked for an ambulance but had no idea what I was telling them.
‘It’s a man in his forties. He’s had some kind of fit and is very unwell.’
‘Is he conscious?’ I ran in through the door to find Carl lying on his back in the middle of the dimly lit living room with Francesca talking to him in a low voice. He seemed completely disorientated and very twitchy. His usually black skin was a worrying grey colour.
‘He is but he’s very confused.’ I gave the address. ‘The ambulance is on its way. I’m going to wait by the gate and open it.’
‘Can you knock on Jo’s door when you go past? Elinor must be fast asleep with her earplugs in. You can’t wake her once she’s gone. Always good when you’re having parties, not so good in emergencies.’
I rang Jo’s doorbell four times before she opened it.
‘Hello, decided I’m the one for you after all?’ she smiled easily in her blue and red stripy pyjama bottoms and pink T-shirt.
‘Carl has had some kind of seizure; I’m just going to wait by the gate to let the ambulance in.’
‘Oh fuck. OK. Is he breathing, awake?’ She dived into her hallway and pulled out what must have been her dog-walking coat. It was as unsavoury as Amanda’s ancient parka, and had the added attraction of a string of poop bags hanging out of one of the pockets. She pulled the door to as she rammed her feet into her beloved furry Crocs.
‘He must have tried to stop drinking again. When’s he going to learn? You can’t go cold turkey.’ By the time I got to the gate I could hear the sirens from Lordship Lane. I pressed my fob key and the gates slowly swung open as the ambulance cut the siren, turning into the drive.
I jogged behind the flashing lights as the ambulance cruised up to Carl’s house. Bloody hell, trust me to be living next door to an alcoholic. When I’d met him at Jo’s party he had seemed fine, but then I had been pissed and passed out. Christ, even Hunter S. Thompson would have seemed sober to me that night.
When I reached the house, the paramedics were urgently striding inside. There was lots of shouting and I heard one of them order Carl not to hit. I wanted to walk away: this was nothing to do with me. He’s your neighbour, Mini Amanda hissed in my ear. How can you think that?
‘What’s going on?’ a rich baritone voice asked. I turned round and an older gentleman in black thick-framed specs was standing behind me wrapped up in a red silk robe, his cropped Afro hair white at the temples. Right now, my grotty mouldy flat in Minge seemed preferable to this circus. At least I only had to contend with Mr Watson the Grinch.
‘Carl has had a seizure.’
‘Oh, not another one. He’s obviously stopped drinking after a binge.’
‘I have no idea. I’ve only just moved in.’
‘I’m Norman. The lights woke me up.’ Oh, so this was Nosy Norman…
‘Hello, I’m Alison.’
‘I know. You passed out at the party and stayed the night with Jo.’ He looked at me intently like he was trying to gauge my reaction to the laying down of the gossip gauntlet. I couldn’t be arsed. After the initial hit of adrenalin had abandoned my body, a wave of exhaustion swamped me, most probably fuelled by the bottle of wine I’d drunk earlier.
A flurry of activity jolted me out of my stupor as paramedics rushed back to the ambulance to fetch the stretcher and oxygen. Shortly after, Carl was carried out, a mask covering his face. I turned away so that I didn’t catch his eye and be seen rubbernecking.
‘I’ll go with Betsy in the ambulance,’ Jo offered to Francesca as they followed him out, Jo’s arm round Betsy’s tiny waist. ‘I think we need a meeting to talk about an intervention.’
Betsy looked like she had been crying. She seemed so young, somewhere in her mid-twenties, too young to be dealing with this melodrama.
Francesca stopped next to me and we watched them climb in after Carl. I waited to see what the unspoken protocol was, if I would be judged on my clear desperation to escape as I yawned my head off.
‘Just go to bed, Ali. We’ll get you up to speed on Sunday.’
‘Gosh, don’t worry about it – it’s none of my business. I hope he’s OK.’
‘Yeah, me too. I’ll see you on Sunday.’ She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. I caught a waft of patchouli oil. Norman just raised his eyebrows and nodded at me.
I shut the door in relief and flopped on the sofa, making sure the curtains were closed first. I’d loved living in the Single Mums’ Mansion, but we never told each other what to do if we went off the deep end. Apart from when Amanda wouldn’t let me key Jim’s car, but that was different – I did it anyway! None of us had ever staged an intervention. Mind you, none of us was a raging alcoholic. But you can’t force someone to stay sober. That has to be their choice, their decision, or it won’t work… Bloody hell, maybe the Mews was The Stepford Wives after all.
8
Francesca
Francesca stared
into space, her Yogi tea going cold on the kitchen work surface. One of those hybrid people carriers that were all the rage now pulled up further down outside. She leaned over the sink and craned her neck to peer through the window where she saw the car had stopped outside Elinor and Ali’s house. A man jumped out of the driver’s side, then walked round to slide the door open and Grace, Ali’s daughter, climbed out clutching a rucksack. So this must be Ali’s ex-husband, baby daddy, or whatever they called them these days. Francesca studied his face before he disappeared from sight and she could tell just from looking at him that he wasn’t one of the good guys, but she thought she would check just to make sure.
Becoming still and unfocusing her eyes as the man grabbed another bag from the back of the car, Francesca zoned out of everyday vision, rather like gazing at one of those Magic Eye pictures popular in the nineties. She instantly picked up his residual anger as well as a sneaky secret he was hiding and something that was troubling him. Oh well, Ali wasn’t with him any more, which was just as well…
Francesca had always had ‘The Gift’, as it became known later on in her life, and she’d learned to channel it properly once she began her own healing journey. She often speculated as to whether she’d inherited it from her birth mother. Mum had always been cagey about it, saying she had no idea, but Francesca could ask her if she ever decided to seek her out. She had followed the clues as soon as she’d turned eighteen but came up against the brick wall of a death certificate. With no one else in the chain – her real father had not been named – her story stopped there. Her mother had no more children, never married and had been listed as an office manager for the Hastings Fire Service. Even though Francesca loved her adoptive parents, the discovery had left her feeling rootless, with a burning need to search for some kind of meaning in life…
She turned from the window and surveyed the kitchen behind her. Every available counter was covered in food prep for the party. The chopping board was buried under a pile of sliced onions, which had triggered a fair few tears, and the stove housed the giant pot of chilli that was gently releasing intermittent bubbles from its steaming surface like molten lava. She just needed to finish making the Spanish omelette, the pasta salad and the rice. Her phone made a sound like a clown’s horn, heralding a message.
Are you wearing any knickers?
She smiled and looked up before she texted back. She could hear Ian upstairs bringing down extra chairs for guests from one of the bedrooms.
Not today. Easy access.
Ironically, her knickers were actually uncomfortably wedged in her bum crack and she unpicked them through her leggings.
I think I might explode.
‘Mum, have you seen my top? You said you’d washed it yesterday.’ Ariel walked into the kitchen with wet hair and a long baggy grey T-shirt on. Francesca pointed to the radiator out in the hall where various tops, pairs of leggings and towels were drying like mismatched bunting.
Don’t do that, you’ll make a mess.
‘Have you made brownies?’ Ariel asked. ‘I told the others you were going to.’
‘Yes, I made them last night. They’re already on the table. And no, you can’t have one yet. They’re for later.’
You can clean me up.
‘What about the French stick? Can I have a bit? I’m starving.’
I’m good at cleaning up dirty things.
‘Yes, I got loads of them. Get a plate, though – the crumbs go everywhere. I would at least like to start off without the house looking like it’s been ransacked.’ Too late for that, she thought. The house always looked like it had been ransacked. Her phone honked again.
Good, today I feel very dirty.
Francesca laughed. She had way too much to do and she wasn’t in the mood for sexting.
I’m busy, you’ll have to finish yourself off. Speak soon x
‘You in?’ Jo called through the letterbox as Francesca decided to check on the bacon and leek quiche in the oven.
‘Tia, let her in, will you?’ she called through to her other daughter in the living room while Ariel was busy sawing off a chunk of bread, flakes of hard crust ricocheting off in all directions from the bread board and landing mostly on the floor.
‘All set, are we?’ Jo thundered as she wandered into the kitchen. ‘I just saw Alison’s ex arrive. He looked like a right twat with his skinny jeans and polo-neck jumper. Why do you straight women always go for such unremarkable men who look like they would snap if you sat on them?’
Francesca turned round and widened her eyes at Jo, who in relay, turned round to find Ian behind her with two fold-up chairs in each hand.
‘Ah, Ian. How is the man of the house?’ Jo pulled a face at Francesca.
‘OK, Jo. How are you?’ he said in a quiet voice that, even after twenty-odd years, Francesca sometimes still couldn’t decipher.
‘All good here.’
Ariel had disappeared up to her bedroom, taking her crusty bread with her, no doubt casting even more crumbs than Hansel and Gretel.
Ian pushed the back door with his foot and disappeared outside with the chairs.
‘I like Alison. I think it’s good she moved in next door to Carl. He needs someone like her.’
‘You don’t even know her,’ Francesca said, used to Jo’s snap decisions about people. ‘She could be Keyser Söze, for all you know.’
‘Nope, I can tell she’s one of the good ones. She’s been around the block. I’m going to see if she’ll be a part of the AA tag team.’
‘Give her a moment – she’s only just moved in and she’s got her own shit to deal with.’
‘You spotted something? A grungy aura again?’
‘Let her settle in and make some friends. It’s hard being a single mum, and she’s split with someone recently, which has left her vulnerable.’
‘Well, this is the right place for her then!’ Jo clapped her hands together. ‘What can I have for breakfast?’
Just before people arrived, Ian tried to snake his arms around Francesca’s waist while she was tossing the green salad, her back to him.
‘Don’t,’ she hissed, flinching. If she’d been a hedgehog, her prickles would have whipped up a wind that ruffled his hair.
‘I’m trying,’ he said, dropping his arms limply.
‘I don’t want you to. I said to you before, there’s no point.’
‘Then what are we doing?’
She turned round, the salad servers in her hands, glistening from the oily dressing.
‘You know what we’re doing,’ she said in a low voice so the girls wouldn’t hear. ‘I know why the caged bird sings.’ Fuck my life, she thought, turning her attention back to the salad. How did I get here, fifty-two with nothing to my name?
Francesca had had big dreams when she’d arrived in London twenty-eight years ago. She’d just finished a summer season in Malaga, dancing and singing in the clubs with a brilliant bunch of girls. But it had been harder to get regular work like that in London, it had been so competitive. She’d come home because she’d broken up with Adrian, her first proper boyfriend. She’d wanted further qualifications after escaping to sea when she was eighteen in pursuit of something she hadn’t been able to find. She’d been entertainment crew on a cruise liner, ten different Mediterranean ports in two weeks for three years. Oh, some of the antics she’d got up to. She was sure she had a book in her. She’d found her sea legs pretty quick; it was when she got back on land that everything felt wobbly.
After a secretarial course at South Thames College, Francesca found a job working at the Stage, the newspaper for the entertainment industry. It was the next best thing to actually dancing on the stage. She still felt a connection to that world. She’d loved the crazy hectic analogue mess of the place. She supposed now everything was online. She wondered when the last time someone dictated their press release over the phone had been because the fax machine had broken down. Various other jobs had followed until she’d answered an advert for a PA at a loc
al property company in East Dulwich where she was now living with Lizzie from the cruise liner. The money was a bit more than she was used to, and she could walk to work. When Ian had greeted her at the door of the cramped office above the bookmakers, she’d thought he was cute, and could instantly tell he fancied her. She didn’t know what to do if he offered her the job. Well, she’d thought at the time, he may never act on it. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…
‘You can leave any time you like,’ Ian said in the kitchen as she added more dressing to the salad. ‘You know that.’
Francesca shook her head. It was a repeat of the same conversation they’d been having for the last year. She knew if she left it would most likely mean having to leave the girls too. They were her only living blood relatives, her real family, the loves of her life. She had been looking for them since she was eighteen. She wasn’t about to give them up. She just needed a better plan.
Her phone honked.
Hey, I wish I was at the party later. I’d follow you into the bathroom and scrub you down.
She pressed delete. If only she could push a button in real life to erase all the crap.
9
Intervention
‘Mummy, what’s a sustitute?’ Grace asked, unpacking her Barbies as Jim drove off, his mood decidedly dark.
‘What do you mean, Gracey?’
‘Well, Daddy and Hattie were shouting and she said she didn’t want a baby sustitute.’
Time for me to act nonchalant and find out a little more…
The Single Mums Move On Page 6