by Freya North
‘Oh?’ said June, filling a cafetière. She of course knew, but she couldn’t risk Zac realizing.
‘Come on!’ Zac laughed, nudging her. ‘You of all people must have known what she was up to – all that forced socializing. She wanted to point out how mismatched we were.’ June felt rumbled, too, but started frantically rummaging around in the tin foil and cling film drawer so that her blush didn’t show. ‘She even sounded gutted that it wasn’t me who did the dumping,’ Zac remarked.
‘You know what Ruth’s like!’ June laughed, leaving the ambiguity floating. She plunged the cafetière, splattering coffee grinds over everything in a half-metre radius in the process. Good. Timely diversion. Zac mopped, June apologized. She placed the coffee and mugs on a tray.
‘Anyway,’ said Zac, ‘the way I see it is that it saved me the hassle. You know how I hate stuff like that. I’m crap at it – I’d rather bury my head and keep the peace. I’m eternally grateful to you for burying “us” – I’d never have had the courage. I like you all the more for it! Thanks, babe.’
‘Cupcake?’ June asked Zac, regarding him squarely but with a brilliantly contrived expression of total innocence that he was momentarily unable to see through.
But June couldn’t hold it. It was far too exciting. She bit her lip. And Zac saw. He turned his head sideways, regarding her slyly through slanting eyes. Then he pinched her, quite hard, on the soft part of her tricep.
‘Ouch!’ she protested. ‘Bastard!’
‘You,’ he accused, ‘are wicked.’
‘Look, do you want the sodding cupcake or not?’ June asked, her eyes simultaneously sparkling with mischief and smarting with the throb from her arm.
‘It’s a term of affection, you know,’ Zac told her with fake naivety whilst admiring the little cakes on offer, each iced individually to perfection.
‘I do know,’ said June, placing a few in a careful configuration on a plate. ‘And how are you going to reciprocate?’
‘I thought of mon petit choux,’ he said, unable to resist taking a little jelly orange slice from the top of one of the cakes.
‘Your what?’ June asked, slapping his hand.
‘It’s a term of affection,’ Zac shrugged, ‘though perhaps it’s somewhat obscured in translation. My little cabbage.’
So Zac told June about Pip’s impromptu visit on Sunday. And his accidentally-on-purpose detour on Tuesday. June knew it was crucial not to comment, certainly not to judge, nor add any opinion of her own; just to listen. All Zac gave her was facts. Pip stayed fifteen minutes. Went to the loo. Had no tea. Called him ‘cupcake’. Noticed the new painting. He’d stayed twenty minutes. Forgot to use the loo. Had tea and a KitKat. Talked about work.
Riveting stuff.
But not enough.
So Zac gave June a potted history of meeting Pip. He told her about when he first saw her. How he must have come across as a mad stalker. About how he had subsequently wavered, fearing she was too eccentric herself, though deep down he sensed there was a potential connection. He told June about the preliminary texting and how long it had taken to set a date. He told her about the mad sisters in Soho, about tea at Brown’s, everything she needed to know about swans. About Pip’s pale blue trainers and that clown make-up is called slap. About her commitment to clowning and her remarkable skill at it. He told June how he found out Pip had a boyfriend and how his degree of disappointment had surprised him. He told her about finding Pip sobbing in Finsbury Circus because she had been two-timed; he told June that he’d taken Pip to the pub to drown her sorrows and eventually, hours later, after much intense evasion, they had slept together.
‘The sex was OK,’ he told June, ‘nothing spectacular. But what was good was the sleeping together.’
He told her how he’d woken to Pip’s slap-smudged face and Pippi-Longstocking-style plaits; how she’d seemed shy that morning but that he had blamed her hangover. That she tries to hide Heat magazine and HP Sauce. He told June of the marvellous coincidence at the Maida Vale kids’ party – that poor Ruth had had a migraine and he’d gone to pick Tom and Billy up. And there was Merry Martha. And she made him a balloon. And she’d accepted a lift to Holloway. And they’d spent ages steaming up the windows of the Audi before spending a great evening wading through his record collection.
‘That’s when we had sex for the second time,’ Zac told June. ‘It still wasn’t that great but the sleeping together was. The waking and finding her in my bed. I liked that.’
And then he told her about Pip’s peculiarly sudden but extreme change of heart, mind, inclination and intent. And his reaction. And that, until Tom’s birthday, they hadn’t seen or spoken to each other.
‘And damn you for making me pay her in cash,’ Zac said. ‘I felt like Richard sodding Gere in Pretty Woman.’
‘In your dreams!’ June laughed, pretending to be mortified with hindsight that she’d asked Zac to pay Pip. Cash.
‘And that brings it full circle,’ Zac told her, pausing to drink down his lukewarm coffee, accepting a refill and another cupcake. ‘She showed up on Sunday and what should have been odd and delightful was a nightmare on account of Juliana being there.’
‘But you then turned up on Tuesday,’ June pointed out, ‘and I promise you, that won’t have gone unnoticed. Especially because you didn’t use the loo.’ June grinned. ‘Honestly, believe me – I know these things. Pip’ll have been reading all sorts of fairy-tale endings between the lines. She’ll have analysed your every gesture and everything you said and didn’t say. Trust me.’
‘I doubt it,’ Zac said morosely.
‘Yes, she bloody will!’ June exclaimed, carrying on regardless of Zac’s sudden solemnity and glum expression. ‘I bet you she’ll have phoned her sisters and her friends saying “He said he wanted the loo, but guess what, he never went” as if it is as much a declaration of your romantic intentions towards her as any turquoise Tiffany box bedecked with white ribbon.’
‘No,’ said Zac decisively, ‘she won’t. Not after Thursday.’
‘Thursday?’ June asked. ‘You saw her on Thursday, too?’
‘Yes,’ said Zac.
‘And?’
‘Oh,’ says June, wishing she hadn’t because it sounds too pessimistic. ‘Oh,’ she says, unable to prevent herself and the drop in octave.
‘Exactly,’ Zac says despondently, ‘and as mad as I was with her at the time, I’m actually far more pissed off with myself now. I realize I humiliated her much more than she embarrassed me. I flew off the handle simply because stress was at boiling point. My anger was disproportionate to her so-called crime. I was in a vile mood and my head was burning. Suddenly, she’s there, making balloons in the shape of willies and squirting my staff with water. You know what my staff are like for the most part – they personify every cliché associated with my profession. Willy-shaped balloons are not their kind of thing.’
‘She did it because she wanted to help,’ June defines, ‘and because she wanted to make a gesture to you.’
Zac pauses. ‘I know,’ he says, ‘I know.’ He shrugs. He looks desolate. ‘It’s haunting me, believe me. It won’t leave me alone – like a mosquito with a grudge.’
‘I don’t think all is lost,’ June tells him with encouragement and sympathy and conviction.
‘You don’t?’ For the first time, Zac’s expression lightens and he looks to June imploringly. This is exactly what he had hoped to hear. And he knows June well enough to know that she wouldn’t tell him what she knew he wanted to hear if it wasn’t what she actually felt to be plausible.
‘I don’t,’ June reiterates. ‘I reckon you’re both evens in the apologies-pending stakes.’ Zac is eating his way absent-mindedly through a fifth cupcake, hanging on June’s every word. ‘I mean, I reckon Pip has some commitment issues,’ June defines, ‘but fucking hell, Zac Holmes – look at you! We parted over six years ago and you’ve had no desire to commit since!’ Zac nods energetically. ‘Anyway,’ June says, ‘for what
it’s worth, I reckon if you sit down and hammer it out, the weight of your individual apologies should bear each other out – even if the misdemeanours are so different.’
‘You really think I should call?’ Zac marvels. ‘You honestly think she’ll answer?’
‘I do,’ June says, ‘and she’ll now be way too nervous to call you.’
‘Rightly so,’ says Zac. He’s had enough coffee. He fancies another glass of wine. He goes to the kitchen and fetches a bottle of Rioja. Alone, June wishes she had a Dictaphone so all had been recorded for Ruth. And then she’s pleased she hasn’t. It’s private. It would be an insult to Zac. Ruth could have the bare bones – she’d pick at them gratefully anyway.
‘I like Pip,’ June tells Zac, accepting the glass of wine and having a lengthy sip. ‘As Dr Pippity, as Merry Martha and as herself. You’d be good together.’ Zac raises his eyebrows. ‘You may well look stunned,’ June laughs, ‘you know how difficult I am to be won over.’ Zac raises his glass. ‘Remember that poor girl – what was her name?’
‘Amelia,’ Zac grimaces.
‘And that other one – with the specs.’
‘Rosie,’ Zac winces.
‘And the one with the weird left eye.’
‘Tina,’ Zac all but howls.
‘Well,’ June says, ‘Pip I like.’
‘I like Pip, too,’ Zac agrees.
‘Tom likes her,’ June points out.
‘He does,’ Zac agrees.
‘She seems to like him, too,’ June adds.
‘Who wouldn’t!’ Zac says and he and June chink glasses.
They sit and work their way through the bottle of wine. Though June would love to devise a precise soliloquy for Zac, she knows that even if she did, he wouldn’t use it. His style is unique. He’ll do things his way, in his own time. As he’s done thus far. She really hopes that he and Pip can finally synchronize timing. There’s no reason why they can’t. They have everything going for them. June feels all talked out, she’s worked hard this evening for him and she’s tired. The wine is finished and there’s only one cupcake left, rather uninterestingly iced, too. She’s looking forward to seeing Rob. He should be back soon. She’s prepared for him to smell of booze and fags and fried food but she doesn’t really mind. Time for Zac to make tracks. Time to change the subject and edge him towards the door. Time for bed.
‘You haven’t noticed!’ June pouts with mock outrage.
‘Noticed?’ Zac frowns. ‘What?’
June waves her arm around. ‘We redecorated!’
Zac looks about the room. ‘Oh, yes,’ he says, unconvinced.
‘We went from peach to apricot,’ June remonstrates, ‘in a day!’
‘It’s lovely,’ says Zac, ‘very subtle.’
‘You mean you can hardly notice it.’ She looks around the room. She loves it. Then she looks at Zac. He’s staring at a blank part of the wall as if he’s reading some Divine scripture there. ‘Zac?’
‘Oh my God!’ he exclaims softly. He looks at June as if a thunderbolt has struck him, granting him some celestial sign.
‘What?’ June asks, wide-eyed, correctly assuming Zac’s revelation is Pip-related.
‘I knew something was different,’ he declares, ‘I just couldn’t put my finger on it.’
‘On what?’ June begs.
‘Do you think it’s too late to go round now?’ Zac asks her.
‘Go round?’ June exclaims. ‘To Pip’s?’ Zac shrugs. ‘Yes,’ June declares, ‘it is!’ Zac looks crestfallen. ‘Look,’ June tells him sternly, ‘you two have done your impromptu thing – now it’s time for some courtesy.’
Zac considers this. He nods. ‘You’re right.’
‘Do not go there tonight,’ June warns him, ‘do not even think of phoning her tonight.’
‘Aye aye, cap’n,’ he salutes her.
Zac has to exercise enormous restraint to tell the taxi ‘Hampstead’. When he’s home, he physically unplugs his land-line and does not recharge the dead battery on his mobile, just in case he wakes in the early hours and is tempted.
FORTY
‘The thing is,’ Pip said over the phone to Django, ‘I tried my best and I failed.’
‘The thing is,’ Django reasoned with his niece, which he’d been doing for the past half-hour with permutations of tone and phrase, ‘the fact that you can hold your head high and say you failed and yet not feel a failure – that’s the thing.’
‘Oh, it hasn’t put me off men,’ Pip told him, ‘it hasn’t even put me off Zac. But I can see I have to let it lie. God – if ever a week felt like a year.’
‘Was it this time last week that you were gallivanting across his desk, then?’
‘Almost to the minute, poor bloke,’ Pip groaned, yet with grace. ‘Oh, well. I am almost at the stage of being able to laugh and cringe at it all. Give me a month and it may well become my dinner party conversation piece.’
‘Dear Philippa,’ said Django, envisaging Pip so clearly leaping about amidst all those nonplussed accountants, ‘I feel you deserve a happy ending – what’s the point of all this hard-wrung self-awareness otherwise?’
‘Whatever,’ said Pip. ‘It’s just a pity because I know you’d’ve liked him.’
‘I most certainly would!’ Django declared. ‘I’d’ve liked him all the more for a family discount – I pay my current accountant a fortune for him to tell me to pay the taxman a fortune. They’re in cahoots, I tell you, cahoots!’
‘Anyway, lots more fish in the sea,’ Pip said, ‘every pot has its lid.’
‘Hey!’ Django remonstrated. ‘You’ve gone and pinched all my clichés.’
‘I know,’ Pip laughed, ‘for good reason.’
‘Plenty more cupcakes in the tin,’ he said, slyly.
‘Django!’ she declared.
‘Come home soon,’ Django said, ‘before Cat leaves for the States. Now that Fen’s made her choice between her two suitors. Let’s have a gathering. I’ll cook something special.’
‘It’s a lovely idea,’ Pip enthused, ‘I’ll talk to the girls. You know what – why don’t you come down to London? I want to show you my spruce new flat. You’d approve.’
There was silence. Django loathed the city so much that he now found the briefest of visits took until Christmas to recover from. Regardless of when he travelled. He couldn’t possibly afford two months’ convalescence! But he’d love to see Pip’s flat, mainly because she wanted him to. She sounded house-proud and plain proud of herself.
‘The thing is,’ Pip said, knowing her uncle would never come but knowing that to invite him anyway was the point, ‘I like it. The colour. The change. I mean, I haven’t gone from one extreme to another – it’s not Day-Glo or metallic or anything. It’s just a step away from what it was. And Zac, indirectly, was the inspiration for change.’
‘The inspiration for change,’ Django repeated, thinking his niece had a very becoming turn of phrase at times.
‘All sorts of change,’ Pip said. ‘I must go – my mobile has just beeped. It’s probably Cat and I must have a hair wash before we meet up – I forgot to brush out Dr Pippity’s plaits before I left today.’
‘Come home soon,’ Django implored.
‘My littlest sister! Off to the States for a staff position on some sports mag!’
Pip is muttering to herself in her inimitable way. She’s tidying up whilst the bath is running because she prides herself on her ability to multitask.
‘Where is my mobile?’
It’s not in the bedroom. It wouldn’t be in the bathroom. It’s in the kitchen. She folds and stores the empty supermarket bags before she retrieves her phone from under a net of satsumas.
‘What’s mon petit choux?’
She scrolls through. It isn’t Cat’s number. Or Fen’s. Or Megan’s. She has a name tag for them, anyway. Whose number is it?
‘Mon petit choux? Damn, why didn’t I concentrate on French at school? My little something or other?’
Fe
n doesn’t know what it means, either. Megan can only suggest choux pastry and profiteroles. Pip tries Cat – all that time spent in France must have rubbed off on her. Cat says ‘cabbage’ – it means, literally, ‘my little cabbage’. Cat and Pip are baffled. So is Fen, when Pip phones to tell her that someone has sent a text about a little cabbage. Megan is amused but confused, convinced that profiteroles must surely be a more seemly translation. She says she’ll phone the French teacher at school. She phones back half an hour later. Pip is wrapped in a bath towel, combing product through her wet hair.
‘It does mean “my little cabbage”,’ Megan says, excitement creeping into her voice, ‘but, though the translation sounds bizarre, actually it’s a simple term of affection.’
‘A term of affection?’ Pip asks, the pace of her heart picking up steadily.
‘Yes,’ says Megan, ‘it is. Like – you know – cupcake.’
Pip sits on her bed, rereading the text message. She’s long since deleted Zac’s numbers from her mobile phone. But she knows she has them written down in her Filofax. She sits still. Does she dare?
Go on!
She puts on knickers and bra and pads through to the sitting-room. Flips around the pages of her Filofax as casually as she can, stopping to read next week’s appointments, skimming over what last week held for her. She doesn’t want to rush to H, or Z (she’d filed him under both) because she’s convinced that restraint and nonchalance will reap rewards.
It is Zac’s number.
It really is.
She double- and triple-checks it.
‘What on earth is going to happen now? Am I meant to make the next move? Dare I?’
Go on!
Pip and Cat spent the evening devising increasingly convoluted replies to Zac’s text message. The fun was in the composing – none would actually do. Pip then spent until one in the morning texting various options to Megan and Fen, which soon devolved into ludicrous suggestions, ultimately veering off at filthy tangents. The fun was in the sharing. She wouldn’t, of course, be sending any of the suggestions. She went to sleep feeling snug and, justifiably, a little smug, too.