The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  ‘Django!’

  How fabulous he looked! A batik smock hastily tucked here and there into a fabulous pair of jeans which were constructed from patches of denim in intricate tessellations. Snakeskin boots (fake) and a neckerchief made from what was salvageable from an old Pucci shirt (original) which Fen remembered vividly from her formative years.

  And he’s shaved, and his sideburns are fluffy and his hair is the colour of milk, slicked back with God knows what into a pony-tail held in place by God knows what. Ah, a pink towelling scrunchy that Pip must have left on her last visit. Or that she gave him. Or that he asked for. And see, he is holding that Chinese parasol in case of showers.

  A Telegraph tucked under his arm and, Fen knew, a Racing Post tucked within that.

  ‘Don’t know how that came to be here!’ Django would say – she’d put money on it. ‘Oh well, let’s open a page at random and see if anything tickles our fancy.’ And he’d place about seven bets. And would just about break even. His theory would work next time, he’d assure her. ‘If there is a next time,’ he’d then say hurriedly and lightly.

  ‘Django!’ Fen allowed herself to be enveloped in a hug of prodigious proportions.

  ‘Dearest girl,’ Django boomed, ‘you come by train. Shitty poof shitty poof.’

  The Rag and Thistle was a lively pub and, having been in the Merifield family for four generations, retained many of the qualities that brewery-owned pubs never achieve. One felt, on entering, that this was indeed a house for the public – a family’s home open to locals and visitors alike, where personal trinkets and memorabilia replaced standard-issue props like horse brasses and Toby jugs.

  There were no Toby jugs but there were old pewter tankards, each one of which contributed to Merifield legend in some capacity, believable or otherwise. There were horse brasses – but they’d been worn by Badger and Sarge and there were photos of the two Clydesdale horses with Old Man Merifield at the county show in 1929 to prove it. There were no signs saying ‘You Don’t Have To Be Mad To Work Here But It Helps If You Are’, but there was the present publican David Merifield’s graduation certificate from Nottingham University. And in place of mass-produced sepia photos of Rustic Street Scene Anywhere, were a stretch of family snaps of the Merifield dynasty at their various weddings, christenings and hand-shakings with celebrities of a major or minor persuasion.

  There was a lovely photograph of Lulu Merifield, aged fourteen, curtseying to Princess Margaret. And a rather blurred one of Polly Merifield in a crowd with Elton John signing someone else’s autograph book five people away. (The point being that both Elton and Polly are looking directly at camera, as if the photographer had said, ‘Smile for the Rag and Thistle.’) The cast of Peak Practice had signed beer-mats which David Merifield had framed in a jaunty pattern around a cast photo. And there was an autographed serviette from a woman who told the Merifields she’d been a backing singer in a band that they’d never heard of and that no one since could shed light on, the signature being somewhat illegible. It was still the topic of conversation on occasions when music was being discussed. ‘Maybe she was a Bananarama?’ Mrs Merifield might muse. ‘Panor-bloody-rama, more like,’ David Merifield would retort. ‘I saw someone similar on Top of the Pops – she was singing and grooving behind Ronan Keating,’ Melanie, the barmaid, might offer, ‘but only similar – not the same.’ Whoever she had been, whoever she was, whatever she was doing now, She With No Name had plinked her small change generously into the oversized whisky bottle whose contents benefited the local hospice at least once a year.

  There were no laminated menus with novelty meals at the Rag and Thistle. Just simple home cooking – pies and ploughmans, chicken and chips, lasagne and a lasagne without meat, chile con carne and a chile without carne. And Bakewell tart. Oh! the Bakewell tart. The Bakewell tart was a permanent fixture on the menu. It was still baked according to an old Merifield secret recipe (a proliferation of ground almonds, plus home-made strawberry jam. Always strawberry. Only ever home-made). Moreover, to deprive anyone of a slice, at any time they might fancy one, was such a terrible notion that the Bakewell tart at the Rag and Thistle was available all the time. Even after the bell for last orders had been rung. So that’s why Django took Fen there, to the Rag and Thistle, though it was certainly past lunch-time and really nowhere near tea-time. And that’s why, feeling peckish, James Caulfield had popped into the pub on his way back from Mrs Braithwaite’s but en route to Tammy Sydnope’s.

  Melanie the barmaid, nineteen years old and so coquettish and buxom that even the careers advisor at school could come up with no job that would suit her better, had wrapped a slice of Bakewell tart in a serviette for James whilst fluttering her eyelashes. ‘And here,’ she said, when he was about to leave, ‘these are for your dogs.’ She gave him a packet of pork scratchings, with much eye contact and hastily moistened lips.

  ‘Thanks,’ James said, unable to keep his eyes from her impressive cleavage, ‘their favourite.’

  ‘From their favourite barmaid,’ Melanie had winked.

  ‘Thanks,’ James said again, suddenly wondering what she’d be like in bed, ‘see you soon.’

  ‘Hope so,’ she said, running her fingertips up and down the phallic truncheon of the keg lever, thinking he’d probably be very good in bed. Not athletic, not energetic, but with decades of tricks and licks in his repertoire.

  Feeding himself the tart with one hand and tossing the gnarled knuckles of pork scratchings to Barry and Beryl on the back seat with the other, meant James steered his heavy old Land Rover out of the car park with his elbows. And Django had to swerve his 2CV to avoid him. And stalled. And Fen had to chide her uncle for not fixing his seat-belt. And Django said bugger Bakewell tart, I need a pint. And Fen said that’s fine, Django, I’ll drive back. And James just looked in the rear-view mirror, caught sight of Barry (Beryl having fallen off the seat with the violence of the manoeuvre) and said oops. Pork scratchings were all over the floor. But the Bakewell tart was working wonders in his stomach and, though late for Tammy Sydnope, he was nicely refuelled to tend her garden with expertise and energy.

  Later that evening, after one of Django’s inimitable suppers (today utilizing chick peas, coley fillets and green tagliatelle), Fen and her uncle settled down into battered, mismatched but equally comfortable old armchairs for a nightcap.

  ‘Brandy,’ Django declared, customarily, ‘is medicinal, you know.’

  Fen took a sip of her Hennessy and hummed in agreement.

  ‘It’s good for your blood, it’s good for your brain,’ Django continued, as if quoting a fact gleaned from the Lancet, or the back of the bottle, as much as from personal experience. Fen raised her glass in support. ‘It doesn’t do much for the heart, though,’ Django said wryly. He observed Fen. ‘I hear you have a suitor, Fenella.’

  ‘Django!’ Fen remonstrated, swirling her brandy around the balloon rather violently, pursing her lips and frowning rather harder than the situation warranted.

  ‘I’m only reporting on a fact imparted to me by your sisters,’ Django shrugged. ‘I just want to know that your heart is in safe hands.’

  ‘I’m holding on to my heart,’ Fen said rather dramatically. Django was unable to elicit much more from her. But the details imparted by Cat and Pip sufficed. A chap her own age. Educated. Good job. Son of someone to do with that wretched sculptor.

  Fen wakes at three in the morning. She has indigestion. Fish and chick peas and pasta. But she doesn’t regret her supper. Django concocted and cooked it with love. And she doesn’t regret the Bakewell tart. It was always a pleasure to pass time in the Rag and Thistle. And as soon as a mouthful of the tart hit the tastebuds, the sensation was exquisite. Like a physical déjà vu. Comforting. No, the culprits must be the Maltesers and baguette on the train. She would refrain on her homeward journey tomorrow. What time had she to be at Mr Caulfield’s? Eleven a.m. Sleep. Come on, slumber, subsume me!

  No. It isn’t going to happen.

&n
bsp; Fen rises from her bed and looks out of the window. Silver shards of moonlight lick the lawn, tickle the trees and reveal nuggets of platinum in the old stone walls.

  God, how I love it here. I forget how it suits me. This is home. I don’t think I’ll ever be a townie. Why would I want to live in a place where night is noisy and diluted by an orange glow? Night should be dark and silent.

  Fen tiptoes down through the house and out to the garden to sit awhile under her favourite tree. Until she feels sleepy and cold and longing for her childhood bedroom.

  THIRTEEN

  Beauty lies in the hands of the beer holder.

  Anon

  At three in the morning, Matt is sitting by himself in his flat, wondering where Jake is and what the hell tonight was all about.

  Due east, in Bermondsey, Judith doesn’t feel tired at all. She’s cracked open a bottle of Chablis and is sipping away, triumphantly.

  Oh Lord. What on earth happened whilst our attention was focused on Fen and food and Farleymoor?

  Sublime nothingness. That was the phrase that the Rothko exhibition inspired in Matt. Where mass is weightless and space is heavy and colour has motion. Advance and recede. Silence and noise. Tangible then ephemeral. Sublime nothingness that was something incredibly specific. The canvases reminded Matt of the moment of reverie. Or of the moments post orgasm. Or perhaps this was what death was like.

  ‘I’ve always thought Rothko just a little overrated,’ Judith said.

  This struck Matt as far more insulting to Rothko, and patronizing, than an unequivocal negation of his work. And so Matt suggested that they leave. He didn’t want his time and space with the resonant canvases intruded upon. He’d come again. Definitely. On his own. Probably.

  ‘I’ll just go and say goodbye to Nick Serota and the others – oh! Jay Jopling,’ Judith name-dropped. Matt, however, was far more tickled to observe David Bowie and a couple of supermodels whose names he did not know, from a distance, than to schmooze the great and godly of the British art world. But he didn’t say goodbye to anyone, because he hadn’t said hullo to anyone, because he thought the purpose of a private view was just that – privileged time with works of art.

  ‘Sublime nothingness,’ he said, indulging in another few minutes in front of a vast canvas, while Judith worked the room, ‘genius.’

  Judith just about let Matt choose the dish he wanted at Vinopolis, but she chose the wines and the conversation topics. Excusing himself after the hors d’œuvres, he sat, perplexed, in the toilet.

  She’s negative about everything. Rothko. The structure of the exhibition. The service at Vinopolis. The quality of the food. It’s giving me a headache. So what if she found a speck of dust on her wineglass? I couldn’t see it. Anyway, Jilly Goulden often praises top notes of dust or dirt or pencil shavings when she assesses wine. I’m bored. I’d much rather be having a pint with Jake. Or just watching TV, for that matter.

  When he returned, Matt did not notice that Judith’s silk shirt had been unbuttoned twice, nor that her lipstick had been replenished. What he did notice was that the wineglasses had now been filled with a full-bodied red with liquorice undertones and whispers of blueberry. And Matt promptly decided that the way to make the evening work for him was to drink and be merry to counter Judith’s drinking and being harsh.

  ‘I’m not so sure how I feel about the New Girl carrying the Trust’s torch Up North,’ said Judith, running the tip of her middle finger along the rim of the wineglass.

  ‘New girl?’ Matt said, wondering if Judith had therefore finished her discourse on the shortcomings of the National Arts Collection Fund.

  ‘Fenella,’ Judith said, taking her finger to her lips, ‘McCabe.’ She flicked her tongue over her fingertip. ‘Gone to Derbyshire.’ Matt wondered whether he ought to have more wine to assist his understanding of Judith’s drift, or whether he’d had too much wine to be capable of fathoming her point.

  ‘I think you, Matt, you should have gone,’ Judith purred, with persuasive eye contact.

  To Derbyshire? With Fen? Why didn’t I think of that? ‘To Derbyshire?’ Matt asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Judith said.

  ‘With Fen?’

  Judith’s face jerked at such a notion. ‘You,’ she stressed, ‘you should be the one to represent the Trust.’

  Matt looked puzzled.

  ‘I mean, Fen’s the New Girl,’ Judith reasoned, ‘she’s only an archivist, not an ambassador.’

  ‘I’m an editor,’ Matt shrugged, not liking Judith’s point, ‘and I don’t know diddly about Fetherstone.’

  Judith let it lie. She had wanted to draw out of Matt any intentions towards Fen. She had wanted to infuse him with her mistrust of the New Girl. She had wanted to point out Fen’s shortcomings, to allude to the fact that it was Matt and she who were intellectually and professionally on a par – and above Fen. So Judith turned to chit-chat instead. Which Matt found most peculiar, having never spoken to Judith about anything other than Trust matters. So he drank more wine and she flattered him with questions about where he lived, with whom, where he shopped and where he spent his leisure time. Matt answered them as if he was on a quick-fire round of a TV quiz. Once or twice, he wondered where it was all leading. What the prize at the end would be.

  There wasn’t a prize. But there was the most almighty surprise. Up against the vaulted brickwork outside Vinopolis.

  Lord! What is the woman doing?

  She’s pushed you against the wall.

  She’s kissing me!

  She’s working her tongue inside your mouth like she hasn’t eaten for days.

  Oh God. No, stop. No, don’t.

  She’s pressed against you, grabbing at your groin. And you’re stirring, Matt. You’re hard. And she’s hailed a cab and it’s taking you to Bermondsey and you can’t remonstrate or even comment because she has welded her mouth to yours. Not that I think you would either remonstrate or comment. If the straining bulge in your trousers is any indication, I’d say you are rather enjoying yourself.

  See, now you’re kissing her back.

  And you have your hand inside her shirt, over her bra, under her bra, her nipple pressed against the centre of your palm.

  Matt has ceased to think. He isn’t wondering what on earth is happening, nor what the ramifications might be. He has no inclination to touch upon whether all of this is a jolly good or rather bad idea. He is in a Rothko painting, where time is not about yesterday and tomorrow but about the present instant being all that matters, a continual and simultaneous past and future.

  It isn’t a bad place to be, not least because his cock is being fingered teasingly by Judith as the cab discreetly winds its way east to her apartment. Her tits feel fantastic in his hand. Her mouth excites him. Every time the cab goes over a bump and changes direction, her teeth catch his lips. He likes it.

  This must be Bermondsey. Though in the dark and under a haze of alcohol and a blur of lust, Bermondsey looks pretty nondescript. Judith pays the fare whilst Matt turns his back to do up his flies. Judith isn’t aware that her left breast is clearly on view, should the cab driver choose to gawp. Even had she been aware, she wouldn’t have cared. She is on a mission. And the final location, where it will be brought, literally, to its climax, is but yards away. The cab driver has noticed the exposed breast. But he is a family man. He tried not to look in the rear-view mirror this past quarter of an hour. Only for the purpose of traffic awareness. He knew what they were up to in the back, the two punters, slightly sozzled. He found it all rather unsavoury. He might well switch from nights to days.

  Two hours later. Three a.m. Matt, sitting alone in his apartment, wonders where Jake is and what the hell that was all about.

  She’s so not my type, Judith. I can’t go to work tomorrow! There again, I can’t not go to work tomorrow. That entire article on the Euston Road School has to be re-subbed. Otter’s having a day off, so I’ll have to do it.

  What was Judith’s flat like?

  W
hat? Oh. Ultra hip. White walls and very wide floorboards. Bathroom a homage to Philippe Starcke, kitchen a replica in miniature of an industrial kitchen, lots of stainless steel and gruesome-looking utensils I bet are never used. Terry Frost on the sitting-room wall. Dark brown leather sofa. White TV and DVD. Spotless. Bed very low, no headboard, no pillows. Therese Oulton on the wall. Frameless. Sheets the colour and texture of sack.

  What was the sex like?

  What? Oh, we didn’t do it in her bed. On account of the sack-like sheets, I presume. We did it most other places. I came, taking her from behind, while she hung on to a wall-mounted steel rack above the cooker.

  But what was the sex like?

  What? Oh, it was fine. It was sex. Quite good sex.

  I mean, was it rampant? Did it last long? Did she go down on you?

  I’m a bloke, for Christ’s sake. It’s not in my nature to workshop through every hump and grind. Yes, she went down on me. No, I didn’t go down on her – she didn’t seem to want me to. We started in missionary on her sofa, then sideways on the white rug. No, hang on. Before that she went on top for a little while and came that way. I presume. I mean, she sounded like she was coming. Then I said could I come. And she said wait. Led me into the kitchen and took a condom out of the cutlery drawer – which only now strikes me as rather odd.

  Did you stay long?

  She asked if I wanted to stay the night. She didn’t seem that bothered that I declined. She called me a cab and we had a civilized glass of wine whilst I waited.

  Do you want to see her again? Sleep with her again?

  Jesus – the Spanish Inquisition. She’s quite a hard, independent woman. So, no, I don’t think it is the start of something beautiful. Where the hell is Jake? I feel like my hangover’s coming on now. I’m going to take two Nurofen. Nuro.

  Matt?

  Fen.

  Fen what?

  Nuro-fen. If that was the zipless fuck, what are my intentions now towards Fen?

  FOURTEEN