The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  I’m sure Cosmo would say a vase of flowers shows a strong man at ease with his feminine side! Good.

  ‘What are your neighbours like?’ Caleb asked with genuine interest and slightly wistfully.

  ‘Elderly,’ Pip said. ‘The one directly above me makes the best apple crumble in the world.’

  I bet his cooking skills are quite good, too – I bet he sits at that table over there and eats properly, not propping a ready-meal on his lap in front of the TV.

  ‘Lucky!’ said Caleb (who often ate ready-meals, occasionally at the table but usually while watching TV). ‘Talking of apple crumble, I’m hungry – shall we go out and grab lunch?’

  They ate Greek, ordering every meze on the menu and a couple of items off it, too. The staff greeted Caleb with familiarity and warmth and Pip was delighted. Mr Popular. Mr House Proud. Mr Flower-arranger. Mr Normal. Dr Simmons.

  Mr Psycho Shower Curtain, Pip?

  I told you, I reckon that was a gift from some dodgy brother.

  Does he have a brother – dodgy or otherwise?

  I don’t know. I haven’t yet asked. And if he doesn’t, so what – Mr Post-modern Sense of Humour it is!

  Pip made sure that she matched Caleb in the garlic stakes and she also made sure that she surreptitiously limited how much pitta she ate. She’d read in one women’s glossy or other that Bread Brings Bloat. Garlic breath was one thing, a pot belly quite another. She couldn’t believe that a dodgy diet tip was dictating her lunch. The pitta was lovely – slightly charred – and she was only allowing herself one slice. Ridiculous. She would surely direct such a word to any of her friends who eschewed pitta for the same reason.

  After lunch, they strolled around and looked at the buildings and chatted idly about what they usually did at weekends. Pip didn’t say ‘ironing’ – she said, ever so casually, ‘I tend just to hang out – if I’m not working.’ Caleb said he was on call more often than not. Pip told herself she ought to lodge this fact for future musing. She could well have Caleb and continue her routine of Saturday night ironing. She even thought about the following weekend, hoping Caleb wasn’t on call, hopeful that he’d try to change shifts if he was.

  ‘I love shops like these,’ Pip enthused in front of an All A Quid emporium. ‘I buy lots of stuff for Dr Pippity in such places.’

  ‘Let’s go in then,’ Caleb suggested, holding the door for Pip and earning points by doing so. (Mr Manners, she added to her list.) They spent a happy and lucrative half hour there, Caleb insisting on paying for the treasure that filled Pip’s basket. ‘See it as a twenty-quid donation to the Renee Foundation,’ he said, brushing away her effusive thanks. She kissed him with gratitude. And he kissed her back. With lust. And then they kissed each other desirously though they were blocking the doorway. Only the shopkeeper clearing his throat, and an elderly passer-by tut-tutting, decided them to walk briskly back to his flat and continue their kissing there. It was late afternoon, after all. And, after all, he was on call that evening.

  The fact that his flat was even more noisy than before lunch put Pip at her ease. It lent a certain ambiguity to her sudden giggling – because the woman upstairs yelled ‘You’re a fucking pathetic bastard cunt!’ at much the same time as Caleb grunted involuntarily on lifting her T-shirt to feast his gaze on her breasts presented pertly in a broderie anglaise bra. And for similar reasons, Caleb hummed the theme of Grandstand drifting up from the flat below when Pip unbuttoned his jeans and eased them down his legs. Pip could bite her lip and raise her eyebrows as much for catching sight of the impressive bulge in his Calvins, as for hearing the woman upstairs yell ‘Fuck off and get out of my fucking life, you twatting tosser!’ By the time that Caleb and Pip were naked, the television had been turned off and the twatting tosser had obviously fucked off. Yet they stood, in stillness and silence on a Saturday tea-time, admiring each other’s nudity and their very good fortune. They were relaxed and raring to go.

  It had been a long time since Pip’s last sexual encounter. And that had been a nondescript and slightly perfunctory session with Mike, the sweet bloke she’d never been in love with, many months ago. She’d known Mike for quite a while. He had treated her to many dates before asking, with great reverence, if he might take her to bed. Caleb, by comparison, she hardly knew, yet she was happy for him to do all manner of things to her that afternoon. And she found she genuinely wanted to reciprocate. Not so much you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours; but more, you do that flickery thing with your tongue tip on my clit and I’ll do something feathery with my lips against your balls. And look, we can do so simultaneously! Pip and Caleb silently congratulated themselves on bedding such capable, imaginative and exciting partners. Caleb attributed Pip’s athleticism and inventiveness to her grounding in acrobatics and skill as a performer. Pip credited Caleb’s consummate knowledge of her body and his gentle but confident handiness and finger work to his demanding medical training. He seemed to her to be an intelligent, considerate and mature person. Coupled with the fact that she found him immensely attractive, she was utterly at ease and their coupling was intense and enjoyable.

  Of course he used a condom.

  Pip was home by 7.30. She was physically tired and emotionally exhausted and wouldn’t have had the inclination to do the ironing anyway, had there been any. She watched whatever was on the television, smiling to herself that, in all probability, Caleb’s downstairs neighbour was watching the same programmes.

  ‘Ruth?’

  ‘Hi, Zac! What are you doing in on a Saturday night?’

  ‘Just catching up on stuff – making a few calls, paying a few bills, watching a few vids I’ve recorded recently,’ Zac said nonchalantly, if a little defensively.

  ‘I thought you’d be wining and dining and sixty-nining.’

  ‘Well, you have a dirty mind and my brother can only have married you for that, not for your looks,’ he sparred back.

  ‘Fuck off!’ Ruth laughed. ‘Well, it’s good to hear from you – do you want to speak to your bro? He’s burping pleasantly, having polished off a take-away curry.’

  ‘Jim always was the one with manners – I’ll have him in a mo’. I just wondered if you have the phone number of that clown girl who did Billy’s party?’

  ‘Merry Martha? Sure, hold on. Hang on. Ah. Here. She’s good – quite pricey, but the kids love her. Are you planning for Tom?’

  ‘Perhaps. Maybe. I just thought I’d give her a call and find out what’s what.’

  Zac never lied though he did Ambiguity and Issue-skirting very well. He thanked his sister-in-law, had a brief conversation with his brother who burped down the phone at him, and then ended the call to phone Pip.

  I said I would. It’s just I didn’t want to obtain her number from the Thomson’s directory.

  However, her answering machine was on. It wasn’t even her voice but a slightly computerized polite recording from BT. Zac was undeterred.

  ‘This is Zac Holmes – from last night. Just phoning about that drink and wondering if you fancied a civilized cup of tea tomorrow? At some posh hotel, perhaps? Crumpet and cream? Innuendo unintentional. Anyway, I’ll try again later. Bye.’

  Pip’s hand had hovered over the receiver throughout. She told herself she’d talk to him later when he called back. If she felt like chatting. But no one phoned Pip that Saturday night. She instructed herself to savour a Saturday evening all to herself, musing that if things progressed with Caleb, they might soon be in short supply – depending on whether he was on call, of course.

  No chores outstanding. She wasn’t hungry. There was nothing to watch on TV. She’d recently finished an Anne Tyler novel and would pick up a new paperback in a day or two. Neither Fen, Cat nor Megan needed her. There were no more household chores. So she could just settle back in her sofa, hugging the cushions she’d made the covers for, sipping a Rioja she’d been saving for a special occasion. She could just relax and indulge in recalling her afternoon with Caleb.

  And yet she
replayed Zac’s message, too.

  I want to contemplate how it is that suddenly I have two men on my trail. I want to wonder why it is I’m finding it rather amusing rather than faintly irritating or remotely unnerving. It’s weird, I feel somewhat brazen – attractive – the centre of attention. What’s weirder is that I actually like it! Could I develop a taste for it? Where would that take me? Should I look before I leap?

  ‘I don’t need a man,’ she says, switching off the television having absent-mindedly channel-hopped for the last hour because there really is nothing worth watching, ‘of that I’m sure.’ She takes her tray of picked-at supper things through to the kitchen, washes and dries everything. ‘I don’t need one man let alone two, but you know what – and I can’t believe I’m thinking this, let alone saying it out loud – it just might be fun, for a little while, to be wooed and pursued.’

  THIRTEEN

  Well, it’s lucky that neither the accountant nor the clown is superstitious – if they were, they wouldn’t be agreeing to meet in this chapter. Mind you, does it say much about their morality, or lack of it, that they are meeting without the knowledge of the people they’re sleeping with? No doubt they can justify that they have no immoral intent – no intent whatsoever – other than plain curiosity and having something to eat, something to do on a Sunday afternoon.

  Pip’s mobile phone beeped a text message while her land-line was ringing. She had the ‘Style’ section of the Sunday Times in her hand and was looking forward to skimming it before settling down to the broadsheet itself. She presumed her phones would be Cat and Fen – with news to tell and advice to ask. Pip had temporarily forgotten that it was much more likely to be the two men.

  u tired me out! i’ll b struck off … cs x

  ‘Hullo? Is that Pip? Well, it’s Zac here – morning.’

  Is this what they mean by double dating? Pip wondered as she read the text message from one man and said ‘good morning’ to the other.

  ‘Do you fancy fruit cake and tea later, then?’ Zac asked. Pip thought for a moment and wondered if she oughtn’t to keep her day free, in case Caleb should be around. But she was appalled at herself – knowing how she’d give any of her girlfriends short shrift for dithering in such a way. Zac wasn’t asking if she fancied a fuck, just fruit cake.

  I don’t like raisins.

  For God’s sake, Pip, there’ll probably be Victoria sponge, too.

  ‘Sure,’ Pip heard herself say, before she’d truly considered whether it was a good idea or not.

  ‘Good.’ Zac was both pleased and surprised. ‘Be sure to skip lunch!’

  Pip was testing out texts to return to Caleb while Zac was asking her whether she’d like him to pick her up or meet him there. She agreed to meet Zac at Green Park underground later that afternoon. ‘God, I hope he’s not taking me to the Ritz,’ she muttered whilst texting Caleb to say that she was walking like John Wayne thanks to him.

  However, when it was time to start getting ready, she considered at length what to wear, trying on three or four combinations before settling for a pistachio linen shift dress she bought in last summer’s sales and a vanilla-coloured cardigan from Agnès B she’d paid full price for. (When Zac saw her, he’d think she looked good enough to lick.) She thought kitten heels would be overkill, but she was pleased with the way that soft blue suede Adidas pumps completed the ensemble in an informal but quirky way. She took care with her make-up and decided to leave her hair loose.

  Zac noticed. ‘You’ve let your hair down, Miss McCabe,’ he said, greeting her with a kiss which both flattered and surprised her. He didn’t, however, go on to tell her that in her soft colours she looked as lickable as ice-cream. He bit his tongue instead and guided her down Piccadilly.

  Zac is not taking Pip to the Ritz for tea. She presumes they’re headed for Fortnum’s. No. He’s keeping her on the opposite side of the road. The Royal Academy, then? But he guides her left, well before those hallowed portals. Albemarle Street. Brown’s Hotel. If there are two things that Pip will learn very quickly about this man, they are that he is not flash, nor is he predictable. She’s never been to Brown’s before; actually, she’s never even heard of the place. But immediately, she wishes she was staying for a night or two.

  Well, I’m not sure what it says about Caleb’s effect on Pip and I’m not sure what it says about Zac’s effect on her and I’m not sure what it says about Pip herself, but for all her abstemiousness when it came to the pitta bread yesterday, she’s gorging herself to the gills today. She doesn’t leave one crumb of delightful finger sandwich; in fact, she even dabs up a stray strand of cress from the plate. She tells Zac she couldn’t choose which variety was the nicest – egg and cress, cucumber or salmon – but that she could eat them all again.

  ‘Save yourself,’ he says, delighted that he’s going to get his money’s worth. Juliana, by comparison, insists on expensive restaurants where she reads the menu as if it’s an exam paper for which her revision is lacking, invariably prodding the food around the plate into interesting configurations but ingesting only a sparrow’s portion in the process. So it’s refreshing for Zac, therefore, to tuck into tea with the clown – even if she picks out every sultana from her scone. She does this so daintily, however, that it can almost be seen as a vagary of tea-taking etiquette.

  And she’s sucking great globs of crusty clotted cream direct from a teaspoon now that the scone’s gone.

  Pip, however, has both room and desire for the gorgeous miniature gateaux and selects a millefeuille and a coffee éclair and a strawberry tart. She takes rapid sips of her Lapsang and leans across to Zac. ‘If I wasn’t in such genteel surroundings,’ she confides in a sprightly whisper, ‘I’d do a great big belch.’ It’s the first thing she’s said since talking about the sandwiches and Zac snorts involuntarily into his tea, splattering himself. He’s wearing navy from top to toe so it doesn’t show. ‘Mr Holmes!’ she chastises. ‘Manners maketh man! Please respect your genteel surroundings.’

  God, I think I’m in love with her.

  Don’t be daft, you hardly know her.

  Zac sweetly enquires after Cat, and whether the other sister (he can’t remember her name, he thinks it’s Finty or Ffion or something) bedded the birthday boy. Pip realizes that the particulars of Cat’s chronic hangover are as inappropriate over such a fine tea, as the details of what Fen and Matt got up to after the party. She says her sisters are fine and she asks about Tom. She’d like to hear that he’s well, but she doesn’t want minutiae.

  I mean, he’s a sweet little boy – but he is this man’s little boy. The chap with whom I’m taking tea and having a laugh has a young son and ex-wife. Remember, I really, truly, cannot be doing single-parent baggage handling.

  Not that you have any intentions towards this man, of course.

  Of course.

  Just as well, because Zac could chirp on for hours about Tom and their visit to HMS Belfast yesterday.

  ‘What do you do,’ Pip interrupts, ‘for a living?’

  Zac sips his tea and tips his head. ‘I’m an accountant,’ he says without apology or embarrassment, ‘actually.’

  Pip thinks he must be joking. He’d apologize or be embarrassed if it were true, surely? Then she wonders if he’s lying – and if so, what a strange fib and what a peculiar job to choose. She hopes he’s not a liar, but she also hopes he’s joking. She knows she mustn’t exclaim ‘You’re joking!’

  I suppose an accountant is better than an estate agent or bailiff or undertaker. Slightly.

  She nods and thinks another change of subject would be good. But not back to children.

  Look at me. Out to tea with an accountant who’s a single parent. I think I’d rather be in Hoxton with Dr Simmons. Anyway, I ought not to be here, even if I’m not there.

  Come on, Pip, you’re having fun. Tea is delicious and conversation flows.

  But he’s an accountant.

  So what, you’re a sodding clown.

  ‘I’ve ne
ver met an accountant before,’ Pip says, as if he’s from a planet far beyond our solar system. ‘I’d never have guessed it.’

  ‘I’ve never met a clown before,’ Zac shrugs, as if he’s pleased that he has, anyway. ‘How about a stroll through the park?’

  They took a leisurely walk through Green Park and over into St James’s Park. Pip realized how full she was and was grateful to walk off some of her indulgence.

  ‘Did you know the Queen owns all the swans in the UK?’ Zac told her. ‘And that if you kill one, you can be put to death?’

  Pip regarded him. She stopped walking and looked at her feet, shuffling them a little (and observing a little jam on her right pump). ‘Damn,’ she said, all forlorn, ‘I’m just so partial to killing swans. Whenever I have the chance, really.’ Zac gave her a nudge and told her to piss off. She laughed.

  ‘How did you get into clowning, then?’ he asked with genuine interest. ‘I mean, it’s not the most usual of careers, is it? Is it lucrative?’

  ‘God,’ Pip raised her eyes heavenwards, ‘you’re not going to suggest doing my tax, are you?’ Privately, she thought that might be a very useful thing and she should develop this friendship. After all, Django had impressed upon each niece when they left home the importance of befriending a doctor, a dentist, a lawyer and an accountant in their lives. Fen had managed all four at university. Ten years on, this weekend Pip could finally count a doctor and an accountant. Which meant poor Cat was the only sister with no useful friends. ‘Well, I make what I call a tidy living. I’ve been a clown for as long as I can remember,’ she told Zac. ‘I doubt whether I’d be much good at anything else.’

  ‘But why clowning?’ Zac probed. ‘Are you hiding behind some mask? Is there some tragedy in your life that you are overcompensating for?’

  Pip laughed so effusively that she started coughing. It gave her a chance to collect herself. It gave Zac the chance to pat her on the back. And give her shoulder a quick squeeze. And a gentle rub. She surprised herself by not flinching, though she feared she blushed a little. ‘Simply put, I love making people laugh,’ she declared, breezily as you like to contradict her blush, ‘and I discovered very early on that not only did I enjoy it, I’m pretty good at it, too.’