The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Pip was dumbstruck, felt flushed and suddenly light-headed.

  ‘Are you sure You’re OK?’ Zac pressed. ‘You look a little odd, Mrs.’

  ‘I’m fine. Good for June. Great news. I’ll call her later. Odd, though,’ Pip said, though she was aware that her thoughts were unreliably half-formed and should stay silent until worked through, ‘odd that Tom’s being was the result of two friends getting drunk, feeling horny and being careless – yet his half sibling has been meticulously planned. I wonder how he’ll feel about that later on.’

  Zac stopped. ‘What a weird take on it all, Pip,’ he murmured.

  Pip shrugged. ‘I used to wonder if I was planned, you see,’ she said. ‘I used to presume that I wasn’t planned – because that meant my mother had some kind of excuse for buggering off.’ Pip linked arms with Zac. ‘But then I think of Fen and Cat and my theory goes out the window. No one could be that careless.’

  Zac slipped his hand into the back pocket of Pip’s jeans and gave her buttock a light feel. ‘Well, I’m pleased for June and Rob. And I’m made up for Tom.’

  ‘Me too,’ Pip said, ‘me too.’ But she turned away from Zac to conceal the prickle of tears, feigning interest in a Hornby set-up, while trying to figure out the provenance of these tears. And whether they were happy or sad.

  Cosima was fed orange food, entertained, fed more orange food, played with, bathed, given some bosom, sung to, cuddled, cuddled some more and placed gently in her cot where She’d promptly fallen into a blissful sleep with the revolving night light and an Elvis for Babies CD playing softly.

  ‘Perfect perfect baby,’ Fen thought to herself as she padded out of the room. ‘Bloody awful day.’

  She went to the bathroom and tidied up, catching sight of herself in the mirror.

  ‘Yuk. You haggard old bag.’

  With a rubber duck in one hand and a Miffy flannel in the other, she peered closer at her reflection. Sallow and saggy, limp and lacklustre, hollow and haggard, she thought. Then she thought, poor old Matt. Fancy coming home to this every evening. Not much to fancy at all. So she rummaged around in her long-forsaken make-up bag and turned to her faithful Clarins mainstays for assistance. Just closing her eyes and slowly, properly, cleansing her face felt as heavenly as a spa facial. Exfoliate. Moisturize. A careful dab of concealer under the eyes, a swipe of mascara, a lick of lippy for the hell of it. Lastly, a few pinches to her cheeks which made her eyes smart a little but gave her cheek-bones a comely emphasis. Matt’s key in the door. Hear Matt sigh. A dormant butterfly taking wing in her stomach. Here, Matt, this’ll make you feel better.

  ‘Hullo,’ Fen said, walking downstairs, carefully tucking her hair behind her ears.

  ‘Hiya,’ Matt replied. ‘You look – have you got make-up on?’

  ‘Yup.’

  ‘Why?’

  Fen frowned and wondered which way to take this. She felt helpless not to opt for the wrong way. ‘Because I feel a frump and I feel I look worse than I feel,’ she snapped.

  ‘Are you fishing for compliments and craving attention?’ Matt teased her. Fen felt embarrassed.

  ‘Well, I think you look very pretty,’ said Matt, ‘and It’s a nice distraction from the baby puke on your top.’

  Fen didn’t know which to take off first, the make-up or her messy top.

  By the end of a rerun episode of Taggart, Fen was chanting to herself, I will instigate sex; I will, I will. But by the end of News at Ten half an hour later, she was willing herself to simply stay awake.

  ‘Tired?’ Matt asked.

  Ruefully, Fen nodded.

  ‘Go to bed,’ he suggested with a friendly pat to her knee.

  And therein lay the calamity. As much as Fen feared the platonic mundanity of Matt’s knee-patting, she loved his suggestion that she go to bed. She still wanted Matt to desire her, she thought she wanted to desire him, but actually her strongest inclination at the moment was to go to sleep. She sat beside him, torn between what her body was shouting at her and what her conscience was whispering and what her partner was sweetly telling her.

  ‘I was trying to be all vampy for you,’ she confessed, ‘like the girl you fell for. But I’m just a tired old frump.’

  ‘Fen,’ Matt said, ‘don’t worry about it. Just go to bed.’

  Fen had looked nice. Matt thought about it as he zapped TV channels. The messy top didn’t matter. He felt a little badly for her – She’d made an effort but an effort it had obviously been. There was nothing on television. Matt looked around the living-room. A soft towelling rabbit on the armchair, one tiny sock under it. A muslin square, scrunched up, on top of yesterday’s Evening Standard. A glob of something orange just above the skirting board. The all-pervasive scent of laundry washed in hypo-allergenic powder. But suddenly, Matt didn’t want to smell drying babygros. He snapped his eyes shut. He didn’t want to see any of these accoutrements of fatherhood. Actually, all he wanted to see was tits and arse. Quietly, he tiptoed up to the bedroom. It was dark, Fen was sleeping. Could he wake her? Would she mind? Dare he risk it? But realistically, was there really much point trying? He went instead to the cupboard, eased open the door, waited a moment to see if She’d woken. She hadn’t. By feel, he differentiated between the suits that were hanging there, found the Paul Smith one according to its superior cloth. He slipped his hand into the pocket and tiptoed his fingers along the edges of some discs. One would do. It didn’t matter which. Though Fen slept on oblivious, Matt still felt obliged to tuck the DVD up his jumper and hurry from the room as noiselessly as He’d entered.

  Porn. Odd stuff, really. In reality, pneumatic women had never been Matt’s type, let alone the stuff harboured in secret fantasies. He’d never pursued a situation of sharing a girl with another bloke, exotic underwear had never really turned him on and he could take or leave the thought of getting down with a pair of rampant twin sisters. But Matt had always enjoyed porn. He’d been sustained by top-shelf supplies as a teenager, even wondering if sex for real could ever match up to the thunderous wanks he indulged in. And then in his early twenties, purchasing hardcore videos by mail order became a rite of passage. Did he dare? Yes he did. Matt Holden became Mr M. Smith and Mr M. Smith shared his consignments amongst the lads with whom he lived. By his mid-twenties, Matt was a serial monogamist and there were rarely fallow periods long enough between girlfriends to warrant the purchase of new porn. But then his girlfriend had become the mother of his child, their sex life had dwindled and porn had progressed to DVD.

  Tiptoeing back downstairs, he didn’t check which disc He’d pulled out. He’d never been one for the stories; he never had to start a scene from the beginning. He wanted cunts and cocks to fill his screen just as soon as he pressed play; fast forward any kissing or slinky foreplay, just delve in deep to the fucking and sucking. Matt loaded a disc and, with the sitting-room door ajar and the TV volume low, skipped forward until a mêlée of bodies was having sex in his face. Fantastic, he commented under his breath, as a variously pierced woman with a shorn head and spiked dog-collar was simultaneously being double penetrated, wanked upon, and orally stuffed from an incongruously orderly queue of erections.

  Matt masturbated frantically and synchronized his orgasm with a generalized spurting from the remainder of his on-screen cohorts who were not yet spent. Their spunk was gobbled up; Matt had to mop up his from his belly. He didn’t realize until He’d done it that He’d used the muslin square his daughter nustled up to, not the sheets of kitchen paper He’d prepared in advance. He was aghast. He put the soiled muslin into a plastic bag, knotted it and then threw it away in the dustbin outside. He wouldn’t even want it washed on the hottest cycle. He took his DVD and made his way quietly upstairs, putting it back in the pocket of his Paul Smith suit before going in to check on Cosima. He slipped into bed and lay in the dark, staring at an approximation of the ceiling. He felt utterly empty.

  I’ve always thought a wank to porn is similar to a curry. The sort of thing one craves, o
ne hungers for. You’re absolutely in the mood, so looking forward to it, ravenous to the point of visible drool – poppadams or a smooth little blow-job scene to whet the appetite and get you started, then straight for the glut of hot and spicy. Stuff it in. Gorge. But like a curry, once you’ve had your fill you really don’t want to look at what’s left on your plate; so it is with hard-core – once You’re done you just don’t want to see any more.

  I feel grubby and not nice. I wanked into my baby’s muslin. Fen’s asleep upstairs while downstairs I’m shooting my load with a bunch of blokes over some really quite ugly woman. Physically I’m relieved, sated. But I feel a bit, I don’t know – sad.

  He listened to Fen’s breathing, soft and shallow. Turning towards her he spooned lightly against her. The sleep-scent wafted from her neck. Matt closed his eyes.

  My sexy girlfriend who I used to fuck became this amazing vessel who carried and bore my child. But I miss fucking my sexy girlfriend.

  WINTER ICE

  ‘Perhaps I’ll thaw when spring comes,’ Penny muttered to herself, a gaze at the wide white world beyond her picture windows informing her that she could thus stay exactly as she was for a good couple of months still. Her solitude and grief felt cathartic, they were becoming a way of life though she quietly wondered if they risked becoming a habit that would soon be hard to break. Penny Ericsson may have lived in the States for most of her adult life and though her accent was commendable and she had not left the country for practically thirty years, she displayed a control when it came to expressing emotions that her friends fondly remarked was transparently English.

  ‘Oh honey,’ Marcia once laughed, ‘you fool no one with your rhinestones and your blue jeans and your Chevy and all. You’re still an English Rose at heart – and That’s because you keep your heart all polite and proper.’

  ‘You mean to say that English women are incapable of expressing their emotions?’ Penny had retorted.

  ‘Heavens no,’ Marcia had said, ‘It’s just we guys gush, while you chaps are more, well, sparing. It’s genetic, is all. Nothing any of us can do about it. We are who we are. Can’t deny that.’

  And yet just recently, Penny felt her all-American friends, with their gushing and their ability to frequently say I love you, now seemed to expect her grief to have lessened. That she ought to feel able to find closure, be ready to move on, and confront a host of other emotional achievements carrying the Oprah Winfrey seal of approval.

  Noni had left her a message, inviting her to see a movie at the Mall.

  ‘I’ll not go,’ Penny told herself and justified that it was because she didn’t share Noni’s taste in film. Really, she didn’t want to have to act upbeat and lie that she was doing just fine. But what else to do? What might pass time, occupy a couple of hours of her day which would be otherwise devoted to the futility of missing Bob? Where could she go in her snowbound county on a bright February afternoon and not bump into a soul?

  ‘I could go for an ice cream,’ she said, and she found that the notion was sweet. In fact, she was nearly excited. She’d go in honour of Bob, who had always loved the stuff, and by venturing by herself back to their favourite parlour She’d be simultaneously closer to him while also laying just a little more of him to rest.

  There was only the one road into the mountains, with three communities of decreasing scale placed along it. They’d developed organically but a town planner could not have done better. Nothing was duplicated. Everything was shared. Lester Falls, where Penny lived and the largest town, had the Mall and a cinema and a Pack’n’Save on the outskirts. The smaller Hubbardton’s Spring, further along and higher up, had a great fish place, a lively pizzeria, a gallery and a hardware store amongst its amenities. The last village, smallest in population but servicing the wider community no less, was Ridge. There, on Main Street, cosy alongside the bookstore, a small theatre, art supplies and a cheese maker, was Bob’s favourite ice-cream parlour, Fountains.

  Supply and demand. Make superior ice cream from the finest ingredients and people will want it, whatever the weather. The parlour wasn’t busy, but it was by no means empty and Penny was relieved to see it wasn’t patronized solely by brave widows out for day-trips. Recently, when browsing at the Mall, or strolling the nature trail to the panorama, or visiting the library, Penny had passed other women who’d catch her eye and hold her gaze with a searching nod of recognition. Yes, I lost my husband too, you know, they seemed to say. Join the club.

  But I don’t want to join your club, Penny would divert her gaze quickly, I’m not ready to be a widow. It’s different for me. You wouldn’t understand. I don’t want to nod knowingly back at you. I don’t want to learn to play bridge. I’m not going to buy a little dog to give me a reason to leave the house every day and join communal walks. I’m perfectly content to pop out for an ice cream. By myself.

  ‘You want a taste?’

  Penny looked up. The waitress behind the counter was offering her a pink plastic spoon on which was a furl of ice cream the colour of butter and the texture of suede.

  ‘It’s a new flavour. Banudge-Nudge.’

  ‘Banudge-Nudge,’ Penny marvelled at the appetizing name, accepting the sample.

  ‘Banana, double fudge – half fat. Delicious, hey? You want a scoop?’

  Penny glanced swiftly along across the colourful tubs like a pianist travelling the length of a keyboard with a single finger. ‘You know what,’ she said, ‘actually I think I’ll sit and have a sundae.’

  ‘You take a load off,’ the woman encouraged her. ‘Menus are on the tables. Juliette’ll be right over.’

  Aren’t the staff great, Penny thought, they give you long enough with the menu so that You’re truly salivating and desperate to order. ‘I’ll have Chippy Chippy Bang Bang, please,’ she said, just as soon as she was aware that the waitress hovered, ‘with hot chocolate sauce. And nuts. And Lucky Charms. Hell, why not.’

  The waitress brought over the sundae, perfectly presented in a pretty frosted dish, oozing with sauce and smothered in extras.

  ‘Enjoy,’ she said.

  ‘Oh, I will,’ Penny assured her, ‘thank you very much.’ She sensed the waitress linger, so with the long elegant spoon she dug up a glut of sundae and held it aloft as if to say cheers. Penny experienced a sensory burst that was delicious and exquisitely sweet and intensely painful. She closed her eyes. She closed her eyes to appreciate the taste. She closed her eyes because it hurt, because she suffered from sensitive gums and always seemed to forget the fact where ice cream was concerned. She closed her eyes because she used to bring Bob here when ice cream was the only thing he found digestible and that didn’t taste metallic from the chemotherapy. That was the sweetest thought, and That’s what hurt the most.

  When Penny left, leaving an empty dish and a grateful tip, the waitress Juliette who had served her turned to Gloria behind the counter.

  ‘I recognize her – do you?’

  ‘Not especially,’ Gloria said.

  ‘Sure you do – she used to come in, with her husband I guess. You do remember him. He was sick. They used to sit right there. Sometimes She’d spoon it for him, feed him. Like a child.’

  ‘Hey, I do remember,’ said Gloria, ‘but that was a few months back.’

  ‘Yes. But today she comes in on her own,’ Juliette said.

  ‘You think he died?’

  ‘I guess,’ said Juliette. ‘Sad.’

  Noni invited Penny to the cinema again the following week but Penny thanked her and declined, citing other plans. She took herself back to the ice-cream parlour, which was no less empty though the day was dull and the weather was now too cold to snow.

  ‘Hi,’ said the counter waitress, ‘have a taste.’ The pink spoon, today laden with an ice cream the colour of coal, was passed to Penny.

  ‘Liquorice,’ Penny said, having assessed it with the commitment of a sommelier.

  ‘And?’ said the waitress.

  Penny tasted it again. ‘I�
�m not sure – there’s something. I can’t—’

  ‘Raspberry.’

  ‘Raspberry,’ Penny marvelled, ‘and liquorice. Fancy that.’ And she went to the same table She’d sat at the week before. The one in the window, furthest from the table in the corner she used to seat Bob at.

  ‘Hi, I’m Juliette,’ the younger waitress came over to take her order. ‘How are we today? You set?’

  ‘I’m good,’ said Penny, ‘and I’d like a scoop of that liquorice one.’

  ‘You should get a sherbet with that – brings out the flavour.’ Juliette was quite forthright about that. Penny looked up. The girl looked like a confection herself, in her uniform striped the colours of apricot and strawberry, her hair in a high pony-tail, a jaunty little pink-peaked thing on her head, her name in copperplate across it. ‘I’d recommend lychee,’ Juliette said and Penny nodded.

  When Juliette brought the bowl over, Penny took a small taste and nodded her approval. Her gums didn’t seem so sensitive today. She didn’t have to close her eyes so often. But there again, She’d abstained from hot chocolate sauce or candy toppings. And Bob had not liked liquorice at all. She felt relaxed, as though she needn’t scurry away just as soon as she finished. So when the waitress suggested a cup of coffee, Penny accepted.

  ‘Excuse me, ma’am,’ the waitress said after placing the cup and turning the saucer so that the handle was correctly placed. Penny looked up and read the girl’s name again. Juliette. Well, Juliette looked a little concerned. ‘I don’t mean to – well, Gloria and I, we just. We remember you from the summer, from the fall. You used to come in with the gentleman? He was – he was.’

  How old? Penny thought. Early to mid-twenties, she guessed. Nice-looking in a plain way, perhaps nicer-looking on account of her politeness and her slightly shy sweetness.

  ‘Is he?’ Juliette was bending down a little, as if in a reverential curtsy. ‘Was he?’

  ‘He was my husband,’ Penny told her. ‘He died. Near enough two months ago.’