The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  ‘It must be quite an art,’ Zac said thoughtfully, ‘and hard work, too, I imagine.’ Pip was flattered. ‘I mean, your hospital work must take it out of you.’

  ‘It does,’ Pip confirmed, ‘which is why the Renee Foundation who fund me regulate our hours carefully. And trained us rigorously. But, basically, by Tuesday and Thursday evenings I’m spent.’

  ‘I bet,’ said Zac quietly. ‘You must see things you hope you’ll never see again.’

  Pip nodded. ‘I’ve seen children who don’t look like children. I’ve seen children die. I’ve seen parents of children who have died. It haunts me.’

  Zac didn’t know what to say. ‘God, we’re lucky with our Tom,’ he said to himself as much as to her, ‘it could be so much worse.’

  Suddenly, Pip felt a little tired. Instead of talking about tax with her accountant, she was talking about the taxing side to her job. She’d rather not. It was the weekend, after all, a pretty momentous one at that.

  ‘Let’s change the subject, hey,’ Zac suggested, taking a seat beside her on a bench dedicated to Elsie Who Loved This Spot. They watched the swans. Pip was still glad to have eaten every crumb of her tea, though it meant they had nothing to feed to the birds.

  ‘They can be vicious buggers, swans,’ Pip remarked. ‘Say one attacked you and, in self-defence, you killed it, would you still be sent to the Tower?’

  Zac thought about it. ‘I’m not sure,’ he said with great deliberation, ‘but I’ll be sure to ask Her Majesty next time I see her.’

  Pip stifled a laugh and continued very earnestly: ‘Oh, and do you see her often?’

  ‘Three or four times a year,’ Zac shrugged, ‘you know, when she needs help with her VAT and tax returns.’

  Pip gave him such a hearty shove that he nearly fell off Elsie’s bench.

  ‘I met her once,’ Pip recalled, ‘no doubt it’s etched in her memory.’ She looked to Zac to see if he was remotely interested. It appeared, from his penetrating gaze, that he was. She hadn’t noticed until then that behind his trendy specs, his eyes were such an unusual slate-grey. ‘I gave her a posy when she visited Bakewell. I was seven. My uncle Django told me I’d forgotten to curtsy. I told him in no uncertain terms how actually, thank you very much, I’d “lowered myself” instead – as if it were a far more deferential genuflection.’

  ‘What were you doing up in Bakewell?’ Zac asked, enjoying a very clear picture of a young Pip lowering herself to her Queen, posy at the ready.

  ‘Oh,’ said Pip, surprised. They’d been chatting so easily that she’d forgotten how little he knew about her. ‘It’s where I grew up.’

  ‘Do your parents still live there? In Bakewell?’ Zac asked, building a very different picture from the free-love family, chickens-in-the-garden image he’d had before.

  ‘My father died,’ Pip told him, ‘and my mum has since moved away,’ she continued, omitting Denver and the cowboy and abandonment in general, ‘but my uncle Django still lives in Farleymoor, at the house where I spent my childhood.’

  ‘Are you close as a family?’ Zac asked.

  ‘God, yes, very,’ Pip enthused. ‘Mum’s like an older sister. Django – my late father’s brother – is wonderful. We’re a great family. Christmas and birthdays are just the best.’

  Pip?

  Pip!

  Philippa McCabe?

  What on earth made you say all that?

  ‘Sounds blissful,’ Zac said wistfully. ‘My folks are definitive expats – I hardly see them. I think they’re currently in Dubai. Or there again, perhaps it’s Hong Kong. I honestly would have to consult my address book to verify. I have a brother, though,’ he added, in case she was remotely interested, ‘we’re quite close. You did his son’s birthday party – Billy, in Holloway. The first time we met.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ Pip said, hastily adding ‘dysfunctional childhood’ to her list of negatives regarding Zac.

  Pot. Kettle. Black. Pip?

  She can’t hear me. She’s on a roll with her imaginary family.

  ‘Mummy always says if I had been a boy, I’d’ve been called Billy.’

  Is that true?

  Whatever.

  I mean, not just the ‘Billy’ bit. Did you ever call her Mummy?

  ‘Tom,’ Zac declared, ‘is just Tom – not Thomas or anything. Little blighter doesn’t even have a middle name. He just seemed so complete when he was born – and Tom seemed to be the name he came with.’

  ‘I really ought to be going,’ Pip said, because she wanted to change the subject but didn’t know what to.

  ‘Sure,’ said Zac, ‘me too. Share my cab?’

  ‘Oh, that’s OK,’ said Pip, ‘I’ll hop on the tube.’

  ‘You sure?’ Zac asked. ‘It’s no problem.’

  ‘Honestly,’ Pip assured him. He walked her to Green Park underground. ‘I had a really lovely afternoon,’ Pip told him, touching his arm. ‘Tea was gorgeous. It was fun. Thank you.’

  ‘Any time,’ Zac said. And he meant it.

  Pip smiled a little shyly. Looked at her pumps, the jam splodge. Shuffled a little.

  ‘How about it?’ said Zac, biting the bullet. ‘Another time? We could dine on roasted swan or something.’

  Pip laughed. ‘Perhaps,’ she said.

  ‘Can I call you?’ Zac asked.

  ‘If you like,’ Pip answered, with some more soft shoe shuffling.

  ‘Good,’ said Zac, ‘good.’

  And it does seem good to him. He would like to see her again. She’s far more normal than he’d previously thought. She’s really rather sweet. Pretty. And sexy, somehow. And her sense of humour is close to his own.

  FOURTEEN

  Zac has called Pip a few times. Though his offer of roasted swan still stands, a second date has yet to materialize. It’s not that Pip has actively avoided setting a day and time; she’s just had other things to prioritize. She’s been busy at work and play and, as usual, doing a lot of looking-after. Cat worries Will he or won’t he, Megan wonders Should I or shouldn’t I and Fen is thinking Does he or doesn’t he.

  However, though the premise of Zac’s calls is invariably to try and find a time and place to meet again (‘If it’s treason you’re worrying about,’ he said recently, ‘we can always eat curry instead – I don’t think there’s such a thing as swan jalfrezi’), he and Pip chat easily for a good twenty minutes each time. She’s always pleased to hear from him. And she will get around to seeing him again – it just might not be soon.

  Caleb, by contrast, seems only ever to call her on the spur of the moment. Or, as Pip interprets it, he calls the moment he knows he’s free. And though Pip is a fine one for telling her girlfriends and sisters never to be readily available for dates, she herself has so far indulged Caleb by coming at the click of his fingers. In a cab, by tube, and in bed with him, too – such is his manual dexterity. So, when she heads to his flat fifteen minutes after a summons by text or phone, she reminds herself to understand that his heavy shift-work means it is difficult for him to operate within a relationship any other way. He’s a gentleman, she says to herself, he doesn’t want to make arrangements he can’t keep. ‘And remember,’ she tells herself sternly, ‘as soon as he knows he’s free, he calls me.’ She feels quite flattered, really. And the time when she was halfway to Hoxton but he called to say he was needed, she didn’t mind. She felt proud that her doctor was in demand. And he’d apologized with a saucy little text message very late that night. And he’d sent flowers the next day.

  It’s something about the very urgency of her dates with Caleb which Pip finds so intoxicating. He wants her to come as quickly as she is able. Directly to his flat, straight into his bed. Once there, however, coming quickly is the furthest thing from his mind. He explores her body with intense relish, bringing her teetering to the edge of orgasm but demanding that she holds it, controls it, lets it subside. Then he takes her there again. And again. Finally, her climax is explosive. The sex is very good. She’s never slept with any
one for whom sex is so carnal and rude.

  Her previous boyfriends had been courteous to the point of being bland in bed. ‘Let me make love to you,’ Rupert used to murmur with a soft transatlantic twang utterly at odds with his regular Edinburgh accent, thus turning Pip quite cold in the process. ‘That was beautiful,’ Mike would always say gently after their ten-minute couplings; Pip stifled giggles at first, but was soon biting down yells of annoyance. Harry, with whom she had but a short dalliance, actually used to ask ‘How was it for you?’ and Pip found that however nice it had been, such a question diminished it immediately.

  ‘Nice fuck,’ Caleb tends to say, withdrawing from her almost as soon as he’s come. His baseness turns Pip on so much that she’s ready and keen to fuck again, however exhausted the first bout has left her.

  It’s refreshing, she thinks.

  I’ve never been one for small talk, for love and all its panoply. It’s a massive ego boost that this man desires me so. I love it that having sex with me absorbs him so totally, that he keeps his eyes shut tight throughout – savouring every thrust, in every position – rather than gazing into my eyes in a cringingly deep and pseudo-meaningful way.

  So, you are having fun?

  You bet.

  But what do you do when you’re not in bed together?

  Why waste time on not being in bed together!

  But do you chat?

  We talk dirty.

  But does he make you laugh?

  He certainly knows how to tickle my fancy. He’s the first man I haven’t had to show where it is!

  But does he make you feel cared for?

  He desires me. Ravenously. And for God’s sake, I can take care of myself.

  No one at St Bea’s knows that there’s anything going on between them. And the secrecy of it all is titillating for them both. Anyway, it would be unprofessional, they justify. It is unnecessary, they decide. What’s the point of broadcasting it, they agree. St Bea’s is business and their time there is busy; the patients are their priority and nothing must distract or detract from the fact.

  And what of Zac and Juliana? Same as before, really. Zac is nothing if not consistent. So, they meet fairly often and have pretty good sex. Not unlike Caleb and Pip. However, Zac usually treats Juliana to a post-coital meal in Hampstead, or some courteous foreplay by taking her to a movie or for a few drinks first. It’s a very balanced arrangement, both people are gaining the same degree of satisfaction. Neither wants for more. Both are sated sexually and intellectually. It’s perfect. Juliana has a handsome, amusing and considerate escort for the duration of her stay in London. Zac has little need to wank or turn up to friends’ parties on his own.

  Where does Pip fit in? Does he think of Pip? What does he think of Pip? What does he think of, when he thinks of Pip? Has he told Juliana that he calls her, that he’s trying to see her again? If he pursued Pip, could it be construed as infidelity? Would he give up the one if the other was even a possibility? Zac Holmes is pretty au fait with his morality, though he sees keeping a couple of irons in the fire as a wise precaution. Zac is in no hurry to do anything about either woman. Time will tell, he tells himself.

  He does look forward to speaking to Pip – the calls in themselves are energetic and fun and it’s become irrelevant that a date has yet to be set. There’s always laughter between them, and they’ve started teasing each other, with wit and a touch of familiarity. Zac likes it when Pip insults him. Like when she told him to fuck off and go play with his calculator. He had the last word, though. Much to Pip’s delight, he told her to ensure she put on plenty of slap or else she’d frighten the children.

  Things don’t have to be going on for things to be going on. And yet, Zac and Pip have said nothing to their nearest and dearest. ‘What’s there to tell?’ they tell themselves.

  Honestly, Philippa, you’re sleeping with one man and taking tea and long phone calls with another, yet the very existence of both is not known by anyone who knows you. You justify that Caleb is just casual fun and frolics, but if that’s the case then longevity won’t play a part. So, what will happen when it ends? You tell yourself Zac is just a friendly bloke but you feel yourself come alive during your conversations with him. He’s hardly of no consequence. He’s someone new in your life as much as Caleb is. You may not need people, you may feel you are totally self-sufficient, you may tell yourself there’s nothing to tell, but wouldn’t you quite like to be able to confide, discuss, reminisce, work through? Simply have the fun of a good girlie gossip?

  And you, Zac – you are sleeping with a glamorous woman who doesn’t make you laugh and who is hardly value for money at the Orrery or whichever fancy restaurant you take her to. Yet you chuckle like a teenager over the phone with a girl who’s a clown and who has a penchant for cream teas. You can justify that you have plenty of platonic friendships with women and Pip is a welcome addition to this list. That she’s not your type if you care to compare dress sense and general deportment with a woman like Juliana. But you look forward to your phone calls with Pip more than you do to actually seeing Juliana. And admit it, it’s not often that you haven’t managed to take a girl out on a date. So, nothing is going on with Pip, that’s true. But it’s not for want of trying, is it?

  It’s a Thursday in mid-June. Pip has been sleeping with Caleb for almost a month and so it’s also been nearly a month since she last saw Zac. Though they spoke last night, Zac hasn’t told Pip that he’ll be accompanying his son to St Bea’s today. He’s decided to surprise her, to relive his stalking days of old. He’s happy for Dr Pippity to be a surprise for Tom, too, because his son hasn’t needed treatment for over a month and is miserable about having to return.

  ‘Dr Pippity!’ Tom’s face lit up and despite it being sore to smile, he displayed a grin of prodigious proportions. Dr Pippity bounded over and ruffled Tom’s hair, and his father’s hair, too. ‘Young man!’ she declared in her funny voice, winking at the boy and winking at his father, ‘you’ve made my day! I was feeling poorly and grumpy and now you’re here I feel better!’ Tom felt most proud. He was so glad he’d come to hospital to make the clown doctor feel better. Another child ambled over, legs in callipers and tongue going this way and that. ‘Hullo,’ Dr Pippity said to her, ‘you’ve made my day too! What a lucky clown am I to be surrounded by such silly sausages. See, you’re making me laugh till my sides split and there are tears in my eyes.’ On cue and unseen, Dr Pippity ripped a small piece of material for a gruesome sound effect, then squeezed a bulb attached to a thin pipe tucked behind her ears which sent water dribbling down her cheeks. Tom and the girl were wet and delighted – only a clown doctor could get away with calling them funny or silly and yet still make them feel normal and altogether better.

  Pip performed her dandruff joke on the girl’s mother who joined in admirably. Then she shook and shook Zac’s hand with squeaks and parps and toots going off every second. More children in Out-patients gathered round and Dr Pippity liberally dispersed stickers and colouring-in drawings and lousy jokes. She teased parents, tweaking their hair with a giant red comb into various unflattering configurations. She mimicked the nurses as they passed. She appeared to sneeze all over a consultant, sonorously blowing her nose on his white coat-tails. She took sips of patients’ water and ran off with a packet of crisps that belonged to a very scrawny-looking boy. She returned them untouched, of course, but the child still held out the packet to her.

  ‘Crisps?’ Dr Simmons proclaimed. ‘Can I have one?’

  It took but a moment for Zac to realize that something was going on between Clowngirl and the fantastically handsome doctor. Merely glimpsing the glance that shot between them was enough.

  He felt numb. He felt stupid.

  She was skipping away. Off to her ward rounds. Her operatic ‘bye-bye, ta-ra, ta-ta, toot-toot’ was general, she made eye contact with no one. She was going and Zac was just going to have to let her go.

  Tom was called.

  Forget it, Zac said to
himself, holding his son’s hand and following the nurse, just fucking forget her.

  There’d be no second date, let alone roasted swan. Not even a curry. Zac was struck by a wave of disappointment. And a surge of some other emotion he hadn’t the time or inclination to analyse now.

  FIFTEEN

  Zac really screwed Juliana that night. He’d been uncharacteristically monosyllabic when she’d phoned earlier and had been resistant to her suggestion of meeting for Thai first. At his flat, Zac fixed her a drink and poured himself a large brandy on ice. Watching her sip her Semillon, he thought how little they knew each other. He swirled the liquor around the glass, spun himself a half revolution this way, then that, in the Eames. He regarded her levelly; he wasn’t sure just then if he wanted her to stay or go. But then she slipped her beautifully pedicured feet out of her Gina sandals and padded across the lounge to the banana chair. To straddle it necessitated hitching up her straight skirt a little. She could have managed this with her hands alone but he was well aware that for good measure and maximum impact, she undulated her hips from side to side as well. It was choreographed, contrived, not that it bothered him.

  She licked her lips, sucked her fingertip, then used it to trace the rim of her glass. ‘I’m going back to South Africa,’ she announced, now flicking her tongue around the rim. She scrutinized Zac for a reaction. He didn’t appear to have one. ‘A few debriefings,’ she elaborated, ‘but I’ll return to the UK for a short while before going home for good.’

  Zac wondered whether Juliana was expecting him to respond in a certain way and whether sex tonight would depend on that response. Going to bed with this woman was suddenly very important to him. He wanted to be naked, eyes closed, humping hard. He wanted to fuck her so that the image of Pip and the dry feeling in his throat would fuck off. He looked at Juliana and nodded and shrugged. His erection was caught at an odd angle behind his trousers. He shifted his position. He felt pent up but horny, too. Being aware of his basic desire had actually given him what he believed to be definitive insight.