by Emma Morgan
‘Do you want to come round?’ Sam said.
This is Grace’s extremely bad hangover
It was a sign of her burgeoning maturity, Grace thought, that Eustacia’s house was now the only place in which she ever woke up on the bathroom floor. And Eustacia’s floor had the advantage of always being clean enough to eat off. In fact, if you had to choose a loo to throw up in and a bathroom floor to sleep on, you couldn’t do better in the whole of England. It would have been pleasant to lie down there if it wasn’t tiled with tiny tiles and therefore cold and uncomfortable. Can you get piles from lying on your side? Or does your bum have to be in contact with the cold surface? Is getting piles from sitting on cold surfaces a myth? She decided to pull herself together and using the loo as a prop she crawled up on to it, she weed, she flushed. Ow. Very loud the flushing. She went to pull her knickers on but the knickers around her ankles were pale pink with a pink bow in the centre front. They were not Grace’s. She did not have any pale pink knickers. She had never owned anything pink in her life, much less anything with a bow on. Where did they come from? Had she stolen them? Had she found them? What if she had been kidnapped and her knickers had been exchanged for others by her kidnappers? But where did the kidnapper get them from? His wife? That was sexist, a kidnapper could perfectly well be a woman. Was she or he wearing hers now? Ugh. Grace hoped they weren’t the ones which were slightly stained because she hadn’t been doing any washing lately. Were the ones she was now wearing clean? Could you catch things from somebody else’s knickers? She leant over to smell them but then she fell off the loo on to her head. On to the tiles. Ow. Which were cold. She was however at least now nearer the knickers. She smelt them. They smelt of washing powder. Ecover. So, she concluded, they were likely to be Eustacia’s. But why was she wearing Eustacia’s knickers? Then the door opened and closed. Then she looked up. Her timing was out. Maybe she was not her at all, she was in fact Eustacia and that was why she was wearing these knickers. Because after all this was Eustacia’s bathroom. She would check. She crawled towards the sink. The door opened again with a cold swish of air. This time it didn’t close though. She looked up and round. It was Eustacia.
‘Smile, you’re on candid camera.’ She was laughing. For Grace, it had always been and would always be a lovely thing to see her sister laugh.
‘What are you laughing at?’ Grace asked. She thought she might have sounded grumpy.
‘You, my love,’ Eustacia said, laughing so hard she had to wipe the tears out of her eyes.
‘Why?’ Grace asked.
‘Because at nine o’clock in the morning, it’s funny to see one’s thirty-two-year-old sister crawling across the bathroom floor with her bare bum in the air.’ She was laughing still.
‘These aren’t my knickers, you know. I was kidnapped,’ Grace said, kneeling up and pulling the knickers on properly.
‘You gave Jeremy a shock,’ said Eustacia.
‘What?’
‘That was him that opened the door just now.’
‘Shit! And what did he say?’
‘ “Your sister is lying semi-naked on our bathroom floor.” I asked if there was any vomit and was she still breathing, and he had to leave the room.’ She started giggling again in a teenage way.
‘Stop laughing at me. Anyway, that’s not true,’ Grace said.
‘Which bit? The bathroom floor bit or the nakedness?’
‘They’re not my knickers.’
‘They’re mine,’ said Eustacia.
‘I knew it! They smelled like your knickers! Why am I wearing your knickers?’
‘You wet yours.’
‘I what?’
‘You wet yours. You were laughing so hard you weed yourself. We were playing two person Pictionary.’
‘How much did I have to drink?’
‘Too much. Don’t worry. The rest of your clothes are in the washing machine. You were sick on them and then you refused to put anything else on apart from the knickers and you refused to get off the floor and so I left you in here. Now would you like to come and have breakfast. That way Jeremy can get in for his shower.’
She reached down a hand to pull Grace up. Grace took the hand and then stood and looked in the mirror over the sink. The marks of the tiles were imprinted on one cheek so that she looked as if she had been lying on mesh. Eustacia, as usual, looked not at all the worse for wear.
‘Do you think he was shocked?’ Grace asked.
‘By the fact that at your advanced age of life you were exposing yourself on our bathroom floor?’
‘Are you going to make me a proper breakfast?’
‘Not if you harangue me.’
‘With eggs and bacon. I want eggs and bacon.’
‘Do you remember who is coming to lunch today?’ Eustacia took the opportunity to clean the taps with a piece of loo paper.
‘The queen?’ Grace asked, wondering what she could do to ameliorate her appearance. She put in the plug and started to fill the sink with cold water.
‘No,’ said Eustacia.
‘Is it worse than the queen or better?’
‘Difficult question. There is more than one.’
‘Manchester United?’
‘Not all of them are male.’
‘I give up.’ Grace splashed herself so violently with cold water that Eustacia drew back.
‘Your sisters,’ she said.
‘Oh my God!’ Grace turned to her, face dripping.
‘My thoughts exactly. I only remembered when I woke up.’
‘Have you got any food?’
Eustacia passed her a towel. It was of course a clean and fluffy towel and smelt of Ecover, most unlike all her towels which were rat grey and threadbare. Grace rubbed at her face.
‘Unlike you I go shopping.’
‘Shopping, what’s that? I only ever eat cat food.’
‘I’m glad, you know.’
‘About what?’
‘That you’ve split up with Sam.’
‘So am I.’
‘Really?’
‘It wasn’t, I mean she wasn’t, doing me any good, was she?’
‘You weren’t yourself. And, well, that one time I saw her … she left a very poor impression.’
‘I think that’s the most negative thing I’ve ever heard you say about anybody.’
‘I felt like she was taking you away from us and you seemed to have been so unhappy recently, I think you’ve made the right decision.’
‘I don’t know if it was so much a decision as a cataclysm. And I think I’m going to be sick.’
‘Whatever it was that stopped you seeing her and I don’t expect you to explain all of it, I’m pleased.’
‘I am going to be sick.’
‘Well, come and be sick in the downstairs loo then so that Jeremy can go in the shower without encountering vomit.’
This is Annie getting her own back
Annie went and touched up her make-up in the loo in the café. The mirror was spotted black and there was a strong smell of drains. Not as bad as it might have been, her face, she’d been expecting worse to be honest. She took a pencil to her eyebrows and then she straightened up her collar. She found some bright red lipstick in her bag and put it on. For the first time in a while she felt like herself.
She walked into the advertising agency and asked to see him. The receptionist said he was busy, as though he was the most important man in the building. Annie didn’t like the look of her, too thin, her hair brittle, and Annie felt the temptation to pull it. She wasn’t in a waiting mood and so she bypassed the girl and walked into the office. The girl shrieked after her but Annie cast her a glare so evil that it would have stapled most people’s feet to the floor and she shrank back into her desk. The office was one of those open-plan places of low cubicles staffed by hip young things in casual clothes as though pretending this wasn’t a real workplace but a fun place to hang out. Annie saw Laurence at the far end of the room, talking to a young girl with her hair
in a ponytail with his body inclined closely towards hers.
‘Laurence,’ she said loudly enough to be heard by everyone. ‘I’ve come for the money you owe me.’
He did at least have the sense to look both shocked and embarrassed.
‘Let’s hope,’ she said, ‘that none of these young ones in here have loaned you anything either. Let’s hope so. You like to take pretty girls for a ride, don’t you?’
Not surprisingly all eyes were on her.
‘He owes me twenty thou, sorry, twenty thousand, so you know. And just so you know too, I’m a lawyer and I’ll be getting that money back and then some. Won’t I, Laurence?’
‘I don’t think you have much of a choice,’ said Annie. She had parked her car outside Laurence’s building. They had had a drive there of stony silence.
‘But Annie darling …’ said Laurence. She had an urge to punch him and get it all over with.
‘Annie darling nothing. You’ll get me my money, or I’ll see you in court.’
‘You don’t have any proof,’ he said.
‘Could be yes or could be no. But I can sure as hell ruin your reputation if I feel like it. I suggest you sort things out.’
‘I don’t have that much cash, you know that.’
He stared straight ahead out of the window and so did she, a smile on her face that he couldn’t see. Lying? She was good at telling lies from truth. Or used to be.
‘I’ll take it in tuppences if I have to. And your flat?’
‘Mortgaged to the hilt.’
‘I’ll take your shirts then.’
‘You’re not serious!’
He looked at her then, as though his shirts were more important to him than his other worldly goods.
‘Try me.’
This is Violet and her decision
Violet walked past the park to get to Sam’s and thought how she would always associate Sam with here, the trees, the lake, the ducks. The world did make you love all of it, she thought – tarmac and rain and nasturtiums and the smell of warm grass and music coming out of car stereos and traffic lights.
When she got to Sam’s she rang the buzzer and waited. She watched Sam approaching through the shadowed glass that gave on to the hall. It would make an interesting picture that, the light and shade. Sam opened the door and stepped forward and hugged her.
‘Violet,’ she said, ‘nice to see you. Come on up. You said you’d been away?’
‘Yeah,’ said Violet, as they went up the stairs, ‘I’ve been to France to see my dad.’
‘I didn’t know your dad lived in France. I thought your family lived in Cheshire.’
‘This was my biological dad. My real dad. Heh, you stuck up my picture.’
On the wall in the living room was a drawing Violet had done of the inside of Sam’s kitchen, with all the bottles and jars on the shelves in minute detail.
‘I like it a lot.’
‘Good. I’m glad you’ve got it. I made a list.’
She held out the list she’d made to Sam. In the end she’d needed two pieces of paper.
‘That’s my list of things that are beautiful.’
‘That’s nice,’ said Sam, who glanced at the pages quickly and then handed them back to her. ‘Do you want a cup of tea?’
‘No,’ said Violet, ‘I’d like you to look at the list please,’ and gave it back to Sam.
‘Sorry, Violet, I don’t get it. Paula Rego? Who is she?’
‘Never mind. I noticed something, about the list, and I wanted you to see it. Could you please look again?’
This is Annie and Laurence’s last hurrah
He unlocked the door of his flat and she pushed past him, went to his bedroom and started to go through the cupboards and the drawers. She dared him to stop her but of course he didn’t. He’d better not bloody try to restrain her. She’d have him on the floor in seconds. She supposed that he knew that. She was becoming increasingly happy in a way she hadn’t felt for a long time.
‘Annie, please don’t!’ he said, but made no attempt to stop her.
She started to throw things on to the floor and in the process heard glass smash. She reached down carefully and picked up some boxer shorts that she hoped were clean. Underneath was a large gilt picture frame with cracked glass in it. Two cute blond kids with gap teeth and a woman with that pinched horse face of the posh and dieted and with expensive-looking blond hair. Dyed, thought Annie, but dyed properly. That was what had been missing from the middle of the mantelpiece then, she thought suddenly. I knew I was right about that gap. She left it on the floor.
‘Who’s this then?’ she asked. She could see he had about given up. She didn’t feel surprise though, only amusement. ‘What are their names?’
‘Maisie. Oliver. And that’s Claudia,’ he said, pointing at the woman in the photo.
‘Where do they live?’
‘Harrogate.’
‘Handy,’ said Annie.
‘Annie, I …’
‘And that house, the lovely one you surely have there, is that mortgaged to the hilt too?’
‘Actually, it belongs to …’
‘Right, of course it does. She’s the money. Figures. Well, I’m glad you married it. Sensible you. She looks like she could do with some food, though. And so what happened to my twenty thousand, Larry? Was it gambling after all?’
He looked at the floor. She could see a slight bald spot developing on the top of his head. Funny, she’d never noticed it before.
‘No, not that,’ she said. ‘Drink. No, not that either.’ She waited for his answer but none came. ‘Hmm,’ she said. ‘You’re a quiet one.’
She resumed her throwing of objects only now she threw them at him. He stood and let them hit him. Jesus, she thought, he’s not going to bloody cry like he did that time. There was definitely a moist look to his eyes. She threw a box of cigars at his groin but he defended himself in time.
‘Go on then,’ she said, ‘I give up.’
The floor was strewn with ties and socks and yes, there was the giant packet of condoms. I knew it was somewhere, Annie thought with satisfaction.
‘I didn’t want her to think less of me,’ he said at last.
‘I presume you’re referring to that woman in the photo.’
‘Yes. She’s such a force of nature.’
‘You mean she has your balls in a vice?’ asked Annie. She sat down on the edge of the bed and folded her arms. Laurence remained standing, hands over his groin, like a footballer in the wall waiting for a free kick.
‘No, no … I want her … I want her to be proud of me. She thinks I’m doing well at work, you see. She thinks it was a bonus.’
‘You gave my money, my hard-earned money, to your wife to make yourself look better?’
‘It’s not as if you’d miss it, Annie,’ he said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘You must be raking it in. What’s a few thou to you?’
‘It’s my “few thou”, that’s the point. It’s not yours to give to your horse-faced wife!’
‘You’re making way too big a deal out of this. It’s hardly anything. And you gave it freely, I didn’t coerce you, did I?’
Annie looked at the floor and took a deep breath.
‘Oh right,’ said Laurence, ‘I should have taken your background into account.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
Annie looked up.
‘I didn’t factor in that to someone like you this amount of money is a bigger deal than I thought. Must be a mindset kind of thing.’
‘To someone like me?’
‘To someone who was brought up the way you were. I mean, I can see your father has done well for himself but it’s not hard to work out where your family comes from. Your mother has plastic plants in the conservatory for God’s sake! She uses “serviettes”. “Would you like a serviette, Laurence?” And they have a horrible kitchen, horrible. I mean who matches their toaster to their kettle to their oven gloves?
The effort it took me not to laugh.’
‘What are you saying about my family?’
‘There’s nothing wrong with being nouveau riche, Annie, nothing at all. You shouldn’t be ashamed of where you come from. Horny-handed sons of toil and all that. But you might want to stop using the word “lounge”. It does you no favours.’
Annie had options. She was aware she had options. But she decided, as she so often had in the past, to take the shortest route. She kneed him in the bollocks and then he did cry.
‘Laurence,’ said Annie, as he lay on the floor, ‘I’m not going to cut up your shirts, which I think is very kind of me. I am also not going to ring your wife, which I think is even kinder. Neither am I going to take you to court as you well know. I’m going to take exactly what I want, which is what I should have done months ago. Now where are your keys? Are they in the “lounge”?’
This is how Grace’s family eat
Grace sat looking at her family. Their table manners were largely atrocious. The twins were shovelling in Yorkshire pudding like there was no tomorrow, perhaps aware that Tess would soon notice and reinstate the macrobiotic policy. Augusta was pushing her food around her plate and eating next to nothing, only stopping now and then to glug glasses of Diet Coke as if she was in a desert and had suddenly reached an oasis. Bella always talked with her mouth full and she and Tess were discussing, for some reason, sheep parasites. Only Eustacia ate neatly, dividing her plate into food groups and putting them delicately into her mouth. Jeremy had had to go to bed because he had felt a cold coming on, having got completely soaked trying to get Twister out of Tess’s car in the rain after the twins had gone into a sulk.
‘I’ve got something to say,’ said Eustacia.
‘Like what?’ said Bella, stuffing her food into one corner of her cheek.
‘It might seem foolish to you, Bella,’ said Eustacia. ‘To all of you.’
‘What is it?’ said Tess.
‘Are you getting Botox like Mummy does?’ said Augusta.
‘No, Jeremy and I have rented out the house.’