by Freya North
‘Right,’ he says, trying to remember the precise order.
Pip repeats her request, once more, in Dr Pippity’s voice. And she raises her eyebrow and gives him a sly grin. And it is then that the penny drops.
‘Bloody Jesus bloody Christ,’ he murmurs. Pip can’t hear him but she can certainly lip-read. ‘Clowngirl?’ Zac exclaims. ‘Dr Whatsit or Merry Thingy?’
‘Pip McCabe,’ Pip says cordially, extending her hand most demurely, slightly concerned that he looks just a little alarmed.
‘Crikey,’ he says, and is immediately concerned that his vocabulary and the fact that he’s ruffling his hair excessively is all a bit too Hugh Grant.
I won’t say ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on’, then.
‘What’s a nice clown like you doing in a circus like this?’ Zac asks instead.
There’s a pause but fortunately Pip breaks it with a laugh.
‘We have to slip out of our slap and motley sometimes,’ she explains.
‘Is that what it’s called?’ Zac asks, vaguely interested, eyeing the queue at the bar.
‘Sometimes, it’s more slop and mutley,’ Pip says.
‘Now, tell me slowly what it is you drink,’ he says, quite wanting a trip to the bar to restore his composure.
Pip laughs: ‘They wouldn’t mix it correctly here, I fear,’ she says, ‘so make mine a glass of red.’
‘Coming up,’ he says, relieved. ‘My name’s Zac Holmes, by the way.’
‘Good to put a name to the face,’ says Pip drily, ‘after all this time.’
Zac sets off for the bar but returns almost immediately. ‘I’d just like you to know,’ he shouts above the music, ‘that I’m not some crazy bloody stalker.’
‘I know,’ Pip says to him, ‘you’re Zac Bloody Holmes.’ He nods, relieved, and heads for the bar. Pip watches him.
He has a pretty winning smile – for a stalker. But he also looks a little like my friend Susie’s ex. And God, did that guy screw her up by screwing her over and screwing her sister.
Don’t tar him with the same brush. Don’t tar him, full stop. You hardly know him.
But I ought to remember that he’s been insolent to me before. And he started chatting me up – In A Bar. And didn’t realize it was me. He’s probably on the pull. This is probably his style. If so, it clashes with mine.
And of course you mustn’t forget that you have your big date with Caleb tomorrow night.
Exactly.
‘Wait till I tell Tom,’ Zac says, returning with drinks. ‘You know – my little boy?’ His face lights up. ‘Of course you do.’
‘How is he?’ Pip asks, and is told he’s doing OK. Zac starts talking about him, the usual anecdotes laced with paternal pride, which of course run on and on. After a while, with her drink almost empty, Pip wishes the subject would change.
And I also wish I didn’t find him attractive. I mustn’t. It must be the alcohol. After all, this is the bloke who has stalked me in hospitals, been rude to me at children’s parties, behaved oddly in public parks and has been making passes at me in a bar. And he has a kid and an ex and he’s odd. So what if he’s good-looking? Distortion by drink!
‘We’re not talking baggage as in a small backpack,’ Pip says into her wineglass a little later when Zac has gone to the bar to replenish their drinks, ‘we’re talking excess baggage – on such a scale that he’d be fined heavily if he tried to check it in at the airport.’
Zac returns and confirms Pip’s misgivings when he starts regaling her with Tom’s Harry Potter obsession. He’s just about to ask her what sort of a name Pip is and what sort of a career clowning is, when two girls approach. They flank her like bodyguards and eye him with some suspicion.
‘Zac,’ Pip interrupts, glad for a chance to move on from Tom and J.K. Rowling but bemused that it is the arrival of her sisters expediting it, ‘these are my sisters, Cat and Fen.’ Privately, Zac is almost irritated by their eccentric names, but he greets them politely and hopes they’ll go away.
The sisters don’t go away. Cat and Fen hang around because they are unused to seeing their sister in male company, a stranger’s company. So they loiter.
Oddly, Pip wishes they’d go away. Of course, she blames the wine.
Why else would I quite like this Zac Holmes odd sod to myself for a little longer?
Fen whispers to Pip that Cat is pretty pissed and should they all go? Pip can see that Cat really should leave now but should not return home unescorted. Fen, with sudden nerves over Matt, wants them all to leave together. Go back to hers and make popcorn, she suggests. Have a chat, she proposes. For a split second, Pip is exasperated and just wishes her sisters could take some initiative and take care of themselves. Even if just for half an hour longer. However, she says nothing of the sort. She tells Fen not to be stupid, she’ll take Cat home, Matt will no doubt take her home. ‘It’s his birthday,’ she spells out. ‘You’re his number one present.’
Pip returns her attention to Zac who is being stared at by Cat, not for any reason other than that she’s at that stage of inebriation when whatever her gaze falls upon is fixed. Fen kisses Cat and nods at Zac. Then Pip nods at Cat and gives Zac a quick peck on the cheek. ‘Ta for the drink, Zac,’ she says, ‘but I have to go. My sister here is lovelorn and pissed. It’s a fatal combination.’
‘Sure,’ Zac says almost eagerly, because the sad drunk sister looks as though she may well burst into tears or throw up. Or do both, in whichever order, rather soon. Pip guides her out. Zac watches her go. She has a nice bottom.
Let her go. Odd sisters with stupid names. Come on! Not my type. To say nothing of the fact that she’s a frigging clown, for Christ’s sake.
However, when Pip returned unexpectedly a few minutes later, he was surprised how pleased he was to see her. Her drunk sister was looking ominously green around the gills and Pip gave him an apologetic raise of her eyebrows as she guided Cat towards the toilets.
‘My sisterly duties do have limits,’ she said, standing by his side moments later. ‘Accompanying Cat right into the loo goes beyond them.’
‘Look, can I perhaps buy you a drink sometime when you’re not surrounded by sisters and we don’t have to yell above dippy-trippy music and the bar staff aren’t fascists?’ Zac felt uncharacteristically nervous but the beer in his system encouraged him to ramble on. ‘I mean, I know it appears I’ve been rude to you in parks and hospitals and kids’ parties but it’s been unintentional – just unfortunate. I’m not rude by nature, honestly. Nor do I chat up girls in bars, or anywhere really, for that matter. And I’ve never met a clown who isn’t male and elderly and scary.’ He paused for breath, wondering how to follow that. ‘And I’d like to buy you a drink because you seem interesting and you’ve meant a lot to my son.’ He stopped and scratched his head. ‘But I don’t want to buy you a drink as a grateful parent-type,’ he rattled on, ‘but actually simply because you. Are. Really. Quite. Pretty.’
Oh, fuck. What am I saying?
God – what is he saying?
Pip hadn’t yet said a word in response. And the lighting had been momentarily dimmed to such a level that Zac could barely make out her features, let alone judge her expression.
‘Well, Pip, I’ve made a fool of myself.’
However, just the slightest shake of her head, just the glimmer of a smile, bolstered Zac. ‘Look,’ he said, laying a hand lightly on her shoulder, ‘I just think maybe it might be a laugh to get together for a quick drink sometime.’
‘Sure,’ Pip shrugged. Though she had the time, she suddenly found she did not have the inclination to give accepting his offer a second thought. ‘Why not!’
‘Cool,’ he nodded, so surprised at her equanimity that all he could do was say ‘cool’ again into his beer glass.
‘I’m in the Thomson’s directory,’ she said, extending her hand to shake his. ‘Well, Merry Martha is.’
‘Cool,’ Zac said one final time.
Then there was a
Cat amongst them, looking grey and sheepish. Pip started to guide her out. She turned around and nodded at Zac. He made a telephone motion with his hand. She nodded again. He watched her put her arm protectively around her sister and then they were gone.
Zac hadn’t spared a thought for Juliana. He didn’t mind in the least that she wasn’t with him that night. She had prior arrangements. Not that he’d invited her, anyway. After all, they were only simply seeing each other – fairly regularly, yes, but with no stipulation of exclusivity. They weren’t an ‘item’ and this was underlined by the fact that when they went to bed – which was the purpose of each time they met – they did so to have sex, not to make love to each other or sleep together.
Zac rejoined his friends in the club and brushed off their questions about who was the girl he’d been chatting to as ‘just someone I’ve bumped into a couple of times’.
I’m not sure why I want to pursue this Pip McCabe, he mused as he headed home by cab a couple of hours later. But I do know I’d like to pursue her – so I guess I’ll find out why when I do.
I haven’t spared a thought for Caleb.
Pip considers this fact as she tucks up Cat in bed, bucket at the ready, before making a bed for herself on her sister’s sofa.
Does that mean I’m an old slapper? Or is it like having two job offers and initiating second interviews before deciding which one to plump for?
‘Hang on,’ she says quietly into the darkness, ‘I already have two jobs.’
For a girl who has proclaimed that she isn’t remotely in need of one man, let alone two, she nevertheless goes to sleep wondering whether Stalker Bloke will call, and how her date with Dashing Doc will turn out tomorrow. She hopes to see the former again soon. And she’s looking forward to seeing the latter sooner than that.
TWELVE
She’d never admit to it, but Pip was actually quite looking forward to not spending a Saturday night on her own. (Though she has oft proclaimed that Saturday nights are overrated and are a great opportunity to catch up on ironing.) And she was looking forward to not having sex on her own, too. (Though, as we well know, she is a great advocator of the merits of vibrators.) She was hopeful that, this time tomorrow, she wouldn’t be reading the Sunday papers on her own, either. (Though she has never revealed to family or friends that it is only ever on Sunday mornings that she is prone to feeling just on the lonely side of alone rather than happy to be on her own.) She felt it was fair to suppose that this time tomorrow, she might be snuggled up in Caleb’s bed (which she’d envisaged to be a mahogany bateau lit, billowing extravagantly with white Egyptian cotton); papers and croissants and fresh fruit all in a scatter around them. She could almost smell the coffee. Perhaps they’d wander off to Petticoat Lane or Spitalfields or buy bagels in Brick Lane for brunch.
Just then, waking on Cat’s uncomfortable sofa at the crack of Saturday dawn in noisy Camden, the notion of East London on a Sunday seemed romantic, even exotic. Pip felt as though she was off on a mini-break. For a tryst. Breakfast in bed. Hand in hand, strolling around places she’d never been. Silently and quickly, she dressed, tidied away the bedding and popped her head round Cat’s bedroom door. Her sister was sleeping very deeply. Pip wrote her a note saying she hoped the hangover wouldn’t be too tenacious – recommended Nurofen and regular Coca-Cola stirred to flatten the fizz – and then left to stroll, a spring to her step, back to her own flat a mile away.
Once home, she ironed. She ironed because, of course, she would be otherwise occupied that Saturday night. She ironed whilst trying not to wait for Caleb to call and to distract herself from checking the time too frequently. She allowed herself to check the time only after ironing every four items. She ironed everything that needed it, as well as a fair few items that didn’t.
She sat down, bemused and unnerved. Not because Caleb hadn’t yet called, but in acknowledgement of her own anxiety. It was this which perturbed her. She read into it. She was anxious as to when exactly he would call, and she was anxious that there again, he mightn’t. It unnerved her that actually, she did care one way or the other; that what Caleb did or didn’t do, might or might not do, was affecting her mood. He had control and he didn’t know it but she knew that he had; it worried her that she seemed unable to redress the balance. She couldn’t do the mind-over-matter thing which she had so frequently extolled, and which she had exhorted her friends to do – and she minded because it mattered.
She told herself that if Caleb hadn’t called by 11.30, he wasn’t worth it; but it was approaching that time now and it made her anxious. Ten minutes later, she told herself that if he didn’t call by noon, it meant he wouldn’t be calling at all. She told herself that the fact that he hadn’t yet called must mean he wasn’t that keen. She asked herself if he was worth being bothered about. Why did she care? Why couldn’t she just take it or leave it? Have him or have not? Happy-go-lucky – that was what she was famous for. Instead, alone, she was angry with herself. Silly stupid cow. All it had taken was one snog in her stairwell, and one flirtatious conversation in the ambulance bay, to turn her into any one of the number of her girlfriends who’d turned to her frequently over the years fretting whilst waiting for phone calls.
Of course he’ll phone, she’d say to them. Don’t read anything into it, she’d say. And when those phone calls never came, Pip would successfully reassure her girlfriends that he wasn’t worth it anyway, he wasn’t worthy of them. It appalled Pip that today she was unable to practise what she preached.
Her phone rang at 11.52. Before she answered it, she tried to recall the deep meaning she’d allocated to post-11.30, pre 12.00. He hadn’t called by 11.30 so, oh yes, that’s right, of course, it meant he wasn’t worth it. She felt the ball was in her court when she picked up the receiver. She lost the serve, however, when she heard Cat’s voice at the other end, thanking her for looking after her. Pip felt deflated. And irritated with Cat, to whom she gave short shrift.
Bugger. If Caleb bloody calls now, I’ll just pretend I’ve completely forgotten and I have other plans and I’m terribly busy and I had such a late night in Soho last night so maybe another time, Dr Simmons.
The phone rang. Pip refused to acknowledge the shot of adrenalin, the hit of hope, as she answered it.
‘Hiya, Pip, Caleb here.’
She said ‘hullo’ demurely, whilst inside her head, the voices of the London Philharmonic Chorus were belting out a triumphant ‘Hallelujah!’. It was 12.05. What had that meant? Well, it didn’t matter any more, did it, because here he was, chatty as you like, phoning her and arranging their date.
‘Still free?’ he asked. ‘What shall we do?’
Well, Pip, aren’t you going to have completely forgotten? Aren’t you going to enforce a rain check in your pursuit of the hard-to-get line?
‘Well,’ said Pip, pretending to think about it.
‘I could come over – I know where you live,’ Caleb suggested lightly.
‘Or I could come to you – because I don’t know where you live,’ Pip riposted. ‘We could browse Petticoat Lane and Spitalfields and buy bagels from Brick Lane. It’s all new territory to me.’
Yes, Pip – why not divulge your Egyptian cotton fantasy too and, while you’re at it, go ahead and order your Sunday papers as well?
There was a pause at the other end. ‘It’s just – well, sorry – but I’m needed. I’m on call tonight,’ Caleb apologized.
Do not sound disappointed, Philippa.
‘Oh,’ said Pip, sounding disappointed.
There was another pause.
Why not implement your rain-check theorem? If there isn’t going to be a Sunday morning, is a Saturday afternoon really worth it?
‘Hey, I don’t have to leave till 7.00-ish,’ Caleb was saying with detectable eagerness. ‘It’s only noon now.’
It was settled. He gave Pip his address and though he gave her directions from Old Street underground station, she called for a cab instead and dismissed the fifteen-pound fare.
>
This was the stage that her friends would text her. In cab – wish me luck! Or perhaps hot date – think of me! Or even off 4 rampant sex. Call u l8r! Though Pip would text them back a mixture of enthusiasm and advice, she’d also chide them for jumping into cabs, at some man’s command, with such haste and eagerness. But of course, as she headed east by cab, there was no one for her to text because no one knew of her plans. Indeed, no one even knew of a Dr Caleb Simmons.
Caleb’s flat was smaller than she’d imagined and she had to be stern with herself not to be disappointed. She hadn’t considered that it might be in a modern block. She’d been thinking loft apartment in quite some detail. And there was no bateau lit. Just a smallish divan without a headboard and with a navy blue duvet set. She checked it out on a surreptitious snoop after asking for the toilet. The bathroom was too cramped for a bath. She noted the Psycho shower curtain with the silhouette of Norman Bates’s mother brandishing the knife. She swiftly decided it must have been a Christmas present from some younger brother. She observed that the lid was on the toothpaste, the soap was not soggy in the dish and the toilet seat had been down when she entered. The flat was clean, uncluttered and tidy, the walls were white and the flooring was wood laminate throughout. She’d have decorated pretty similarly if she had lived here, she thought, and quietly congratulated herself and Caleb on their compatibility when it came to décor. However, the apartment was not remotely soundproofed from downstairs’s television or the blazing row being conducted upstairs in a mixture of Anglo-Saxon expletives and patois.
‘I’ve had to tend to a broken nose in the past,’ Caleb told her, motioning to the flat upstairs. ‘She whacked him.’
‘Well,’ Pip said lightly, pleasantly surprised by cornflowers in a vase, ‘I suppose it means you don’t have to resort to the telly for soap opera.’