by Carrie Adams
Only trouble was, I didn’t know his name and was too embarrassed to ask. He somehow knew mine, which made it worse, and made reference to a time we’d met before. I had no recollection of this whatsoever, but because I’d pretended to remember, I was now buggered. My one piece of luck was that he knew Neil, so I stopped asking investigative questions, hoping I could get the low-down on him through Helen. Perfect. Back to dirty dancing.
Eventually we ran out of fuel, and sort of fell into a slow dance that I would not normally do, but it was dark, and I didn’t think anyone was watching, and actually it was nice. I knew a second before it happened that he was going to kiss me. I wasn’t going to stop it. Unfortunately the Lord had other plans.
“Tessa! Your phone is ringing off the hook, do you want me to answer it?”
Samira was standing on the edge of the dance floor, holding my phone.
“Honestly, it’s rung four times in the last few minutes. Whoever is ringing isn’t leaving a message, they’re just trying again and again.”
It was three o’clock in the morning; phones don’t ring off the hook for any good reason. I pulled away from salt-and-pepper man. It was Caspar’s number.
“Caspar? Are you all right?”
“Tessa?”
“Who is this?”
“It’s Zac.”
Dear God. “Isn’t it a little past your bedtime?”
“Don’t flatter yourself. I thought someone ought to know that Caspar is puking his guts up, but fuck it, I was just trying to help.”
“Where is he?”
“Oh, so now you want to talk to me?”
Children. These boys were children and men were babies. I was rapidly going off the idea of conjoining myself to one.
“Where are you?”
“Corner of Wardour Street and Old Compton Street, there’s a club, we’re going in.”
“Don’t leave him, I’m coming now.”
“I’m not fucking babysitting him again.”
Again? “Don’t be ridiculous. He’s your friend. I’ll be there in five minutes.”
“He’s covered in puke.”
“Just stay with him.”
“Whatever.”
Bloody idiot. Salt-and-pepper man found me at the coat check. I rapidly explained the situation and ran.
I decided against calling Nick and Francesca as I assumed some cover-up story had already been concocted. I’m staying with mates, my mates are staying with me; the sort of thing parents fall for again and again. So there was no need to alarm them in the middle of the night. But I was alarmed. I should have made him come with me. Sixteen years old for all of one day, and I had left him alone, already under the influence, in Piccadilly Circus. Easy pickings. I knew in my heart how he’d gone from stoned to passed out and covered in puke. My twenty-quid note. Why had I given him that? He was never going to use it on a cab. The sly little toad probably had a bus pass anyway. I had given him that note because I wanted to be popular. For the first time in my life I understood why my mother said parents had to be prepared to be hated by their children. I felt guilty as I ran through the deserted streets of London. Guilty as a parent. It was not a comfortable feeling.
I was angry with myself and right up until the moment I saw him, furious with Caspar. Soporific, he’d collapsed into a dark, dank, urine-stained corner. He was drunk and stoned, that was obvious; he was also alone. Zac was nowhere to be seen. Then I noticed the female officer. She was standing some way off from Caspar, but she was looking at him and talking into the radio on her shoulder. I ran, in those bloody heels, I ran.
“Hello? Hello?”
She turned to me.
“He’s mine. I’m so sorry. I’m taking him home.”
She looked at me. “How exactly? He’s passed out.”
Shit.
“Taxi?”
“As long as he doesn’t get hypothermia before you find one that will take you.”
I looked at Caspar. She had a point.
“Is he all right?”
“He’s been very sick, so I shouldn’t think pumping his stomach will help.”
Oh hell. “What shall I do?”
“Well, you can’t leave him here. Frankly, he looks a little too young to be here in the first place. Did you know he was here?”
“He turned sixteen today, yesterday.”
“Sixteen?”
I knew immediately I’d said the wrong thing. He could have sex, he couldn’t drink. Was she going to arrest him now?
“He must have got his hands on some beer from home…”
“And where were you?” She didn’t have to wait for an answer, she just looked at my get-up. I was about to protest but then I realized if I did, she wouldn’t let me take him home, so I took the disapproving looks and the sanctimonious tone.
“Do you have someone who can come and get you?”
She was just punishing me now. Would I be staggering around Soho in killer heels in the freezing cold wearing next to nothing if I had someone to come and get me! No. I’d have been in bed since eleven with a good book and maybe, if I was lucky, I would have had easy, uncomplicated sex before switching off the light. I would have had someone to hold me in the dark and chat until sleep took hold of me. I would have woken to find a cup of tea on my bedside table—
“Are you all right, madam?”
I snapped out of my reverie.
“I’ll be fine,” I said. I’ll cope. I do that. I called the taxi firm I used to use with work. I still knew the account number which meant they couldn’t refuse. I knelt down in front of Caspar and tried to get his head up off his knees.
“I wouldn’t do that,” said the WPC, a fraction too late. The movement set Caspar’s retching off; he vomited all down my front. He didn’t even have the politeness to apologize. He didn’t even open his eyes. That alarmed me more than the stinking streak of his stomach’s contents on my dress.
“Is he unconscious?” I asked.
I think that was when the audience’s sympathy turned in my favor. The officer checked him over for me. His eyes didn’t respond when we shone a torch in them. He was catatonic. A dead weight. She helped me lower him on to the ground, then put him in the recovery position. People stared at us as they walked past. The jeering would have been worse if it had not been for the presence of the policewoman.
“I could call an ambulance,” she said.
“An ambulance? I wouldn’t want to take up their time.”
“He might have taken something.”
“Taken?”
“You could search his pockets.”
I must have looked terrified because she became much more reassuring. “Let’s ignore the legal side of this for a moment. And worry about his health.”
I thought for a second and then decided to take the woman at her word. She’d know more about this than any parent. She must have seen kids in this state all the time.
“We’ve been having a bit of a problem with cannabis recently.” The imaginary “we.”
“Do you know how much?”
I shook my head.
“Is he experimenting with anything else?”
“Like?”
“Amphetamines, cocaine…”
“He doesn’t have access to that sort of money,” I said, then swore loudly.
“What?”
“I don’t believe it.” I looked at Caspar, my sweet, cherubic boy, lying in his own vomit and other people’s urine. “The little bastard stole fifty quid off me.” I went through his pockets at that point and quickly found the tin I’d seen during his sister’s birthday party. I’d been fooled by the beanbag, the teen posters on the wall, the remnants of childhood on the shelves, but here, against the backdrop of cold, hard cement, the tin didn’t look quite so innocuous as it had before. I opened it up. It was nearly empty, but the accoutrements were all present and correct. Rizla papers. Torn cardboard. A pouch of tobacco. And a smattering of grass. The policewoman took it from me. She sniffed the
tin.
“Skunk,” she said. “I think you need to talk to your son.”
My son…My son…I couldn’t tell her now.
“This is a very high-strength variant of cannabis which could be responsible for the increase in psychotic episodes among adolescents. The anecdotal evidence is fairly damning. It’s expensive too, which may explain the fifty quid.”
“Psychotic episodes?”
“Have you noticed any changes in his behavior?”
Francesca had. “I thought it was just puberty.”
“It could be. But skunk is a bad sign. I think that statistics are something like of all the children referred to doctors with mental problems, 85 per cent of them are smoking skunk.”
“Jesus Christ.”
“The government is considering a rethink.”
“I read about it, but didn’t think it related to me.”
“No one ever does.”
She was right, of course. It wasn’t that I hadn’t noticed the change in Caspar, but that I had chosen to ignore it. Francesca and Nick were having an impossible time with him and I had disregarded them both. Some godmother I was. Caspar started retching again. This time nothing came out.
“Keep him in the recovery position so he doesn’t swallow his tongue,” said the policewoman.
Nice.
Finally the cab arrived. It took all my legal powers of persuasion to cajole the driver into accepting the fare. It took the three of us to get Caspar into the taxi and lie him down, on his side, on the floor. That was when I saw the small rectangle of folded paper peeking out from his back pocket. I looked at the policewoman; she’d seen it too. I bent down and pulled it out. I passed it straight to her.
“Are we still forgetting the legality of things?”
She didn’t answer. I didn’t blame her. I’d already asked enough of her. We watched as she unwrapped the paper. She shone her torch on its contents, put her finger in it and rubbed it between her fingers. I saw the white powder and felt my heart break. Grass was one thing, even strong grass which turned children into schizophrenics, but this—this was worse.
“Looks like I won’t be taking you home after all,” said the cab driver.
“Yes, you will,” said the policewoman.
“He will?”
She held open the packet.
“Talcum powder,” she said.
“Damn,” said the driver, under his breath.
I peered at it more closely. “Are you sure?”
“Absolutely. The young ones often get duped like this.”
“Thank God,” I said.
“I wouldn’t be too relieved,” she said, holding open the taxi door. “Your son didn’t set out to buy talcum powder this evening.”
Roman had seen me come and go in many states with numerous people, but until now he hadn’t seen me drag my prey across the lobby floor. The taxi driver had taken his enormous tip and scarpered.
“Good grief, who is this?” asked Roman, taking an arm.
“My godson.”
“Young Caspar? No!”
Yes, my doorman knew the name of my godchildren. At the time I thought there was nothing wrong in that.
“He turned sixteen today.”
“Well, he’s learned now. Yes?” Roman nodded encouragingly. I was not encouraged.
Roman helped me get Caspar all the way to my bedroom, then left me. I stripped him and lay him on an old towel on my bed. He’d soiled himself and was sick again. I cleaned him up, wiped his bum, squeezed his nostrils free of debris, wrapped him in a clean white towel and put him back in the fetal position to await the next projectile vomit, terrified he would choke or swallow his own tongue. I was up all night. As dawn broke I felt as though I’d given birth to a teenager.
5
butterflies dancing
I heard the knock at the door, but it didn’t register through my sleepy fog. Then I heard my mobile ring. When that went unanswered, my landline rang. I patted around the vicinity of the sofa where I had crashed out an hour after Caspar had finally stopped retching. I knew the phone was down there somewhere because I’d used it to call NHS Direct. Caspar had felt so cold, no matter how many blankets I put on him, that, befuddled by lack of sleep, I had been convinced that he was dying of hypothermia.
“Open the door, it’s me.”
“Errrrrrrrr.”
“I’ve got fresh coffee.”
I opened an eye and spoke to the phone. “Claudia?”
“Who did you think it was?”
“I don’t know. I was dreaming.”
“I’m outside your flat. It’s nearly twelve—get up.”
I crossed to the door.
“Oh God,” said Claudia, handing me a coffee. “Have you just come in?” I was still wearing my top-totty outfit. Though now, of course, I looked psychotic.
“Long night?”
I took a sip of the milky, sugary coffee and nearly wept with gratitude. I nodded and swallowed. She followed me down the partial passageway to the kitchen bar.
“Hmm,” said Claudia, eyeing the strewn clothes around my living area. She kicked at the jeans. Toed the battered Converse. “Either you’re shagging a rock star, or your conquests are getting younger.”
I held a finger up in an unladylike gesture.
“Is he still here, or did he run out semi-naked?” Claudia continued, not in the slightest bit offended. I still couldn’t speak so I pointed to the bookshelf. Claudia peered over. There, lying on his back, his arms spread wide, all tangled up in my sheets, was Caspar. He looked angelic, the bastard. Whereas I looked like something an owl coughs up. I needed more caffeine and some decent foundation before I could be ready to give him the moral lecture of his lifetime, and mine. Claudia was staring at me with a look of horror on her face.
“I know,” I said, nodding. “I’ve been up all night with him. It’s terrible. I’m exhausted, I don’t have the stamina any more.”
Claudia blocked her ears. “Jesus, Tessa. I don’t want to know.”
“Know what?”
“He’s fifteen, are you mad?”
“Sixteen, since yesterday.”
“That doesn’t make it any better, Tessa.”
“I know. It meant they could have charged him with public intoxication or worse.”
“Public intoxication?”
“Horribly, disgustingly drunk. I didn’t want to freak out Fran, so I brought him here.”
“Oh.”
“What did you think I was talking about?” Then the horror of what she’d thought struck me with the unpalatable force of elephant dung. “Claudia!”
“He’s naked.”
“I’m old enough to be his mother. I almost am his mother. That’s disgusting. You’re gross.”
Claudia started laughing.
“You are a filthy-minded cow, dressed up in a pretty Laura Ashley dress,” I said accusingly. “How could you?”
“I don’t wear Laura Ashley.”
“Liar.”
“OK, but only in the summer.”
This time we both laughed. “I can’t believe you thought I’d slept with Caspar. What sort of desperate witch do you take me for?”
“Sorry, Tessa, it’s the hormones. I’m all over the place.”
The mention of hormones is Claudia’s ultimate trump card. All irritation, horror, boredom, jealousy—whatever one sporadically feels towards one’s friends—vanishes. I couldn’t feel any anger towards her after that.
“I didn’t realize you’d started another round, sorry.”
“Yeah. I just had to drop a charming urine sample into the Lister—it’s so much easier on a Sunday because I can park. Then I thought maybe I’d get to see you too. So here I am. Sorry I didn’t call.”
I hadn’t really listened beyond the word Lister. It had so many connotations: the Lister, a hospital that performed IVF. I didn’t know how to react. It had been the kernel of so many hopes, created then dashed, created then dashed, created then…
>
“Are you starting the injections again?”
“We’re going down another track actually,” said Claudia, who’d sniffed and injected more hormones than the U.S. beef industry.
“Is that good or bad?”
“Good. Sit down, Tess. I’ve got something to ask you.”
This was it. I wished she’d chosen a better time to ask, one where I was less weakened by exhaustion, one where all my rehearsed arguments against her request that I be a surrogate mother to their baby flowed convincingly from within. Now I was going to cry and I promised I wouldn’t when the time came, because the poor girl had been through enough and this wasn’t about me, it was about her and Al, and God, why was I such a selfish cow…
“Would you consider…”
AAAAAAAAhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
“…being godmother to our child?”
“I’ve thought about this and I’m afraid…Sorry, what did you say?”
“Would you consider being godmother to our child?”
I could feel the puzzled expression on my face cracking through last night’s foundation. “You don’t want me to have your baby for you?”
“Jesus, Tessa, I wouldn’t put you through that,” said Claudia.
“I’d do it.”
“Liar.”
“You’re right. Sorry. I’ve thought about it, though.”
“So have I, and it isn’t an option. But being a godmother is, so will you?”
“Of course. You don’t even have to ask, I’d be delighted, but there is one small observation I feel inclined to make…”
“What child?” Claudia finished for me.