You Must Be Jo King

by Moira Murphy

  “Yes Mam, but I’m not talking about clothes or a horse now, I’m talking about a poor little gorilla whose parents…”

  “I know, Lucy, have been murdered.”

  I said she should try her dad when he comes back from Florida. She huffed and said that was ages away and anyway, Benjy would probably have been snapped up by somebody else by then.

  I said there would be other gorillas.

  She said not like Benjy there wouldn’t, and anyway her father would probably say no.

  I thought, Oh I don’t know. They say charity begins at home. George shouldn’t have any problem sponsoring a gorilla; fellow swingers and all that.

  Then Lucy said, “Mam, what’s Millie eating?”

  Millie had been rifling in my bag. She’d obviously eaten the other half of the chocolate flake I’d left, because the wrapper was on the floor and she had lip pencil on her nose and teeth, so that had gone the journey as well. In a stern voice, because someone said it’s all in the tone of voice, I reminded her that my bag was out of bounds. I also reminded her about the cage in the local cat and dog shelter with her name on it. She exhaled one of her sighs, the one that sounded like, ‘God that old chestnut’. I said, “Make no mistake about it pooch, you will not be hitting the high life when you go there. Oh, no. You’re not guaranteed Pedigree Chum and Winalot mixer, it’ll be supermarket brands or whatever kind animal lovers have donated into the drums at the exit doors of the supermarket.” I expected her to sigh a, yeah, yeah, as she usually did when I mentioned the cat and dog shelter, but she didn’t, instead she started to choke. She began clawing at her mouth while rolling back and forth on her back.

  Lucy had gone upstairs to get dressed and I called her down.

  It was obvious the dog had something stuck in her throat. I really had to shout for Lucy as she was sulking over Benjy and ignoring me. Eventually, realising I meant business, she stomped downstairs. I had Millie on her back and I told Lucy to hold her down securely so she wouldn’t be able to turn away from me until I could see what she had in her mouth. Forcing her mouth open and although she was struggling to get away, I could see the string of a tampon hanging out of her throat. My God, this was serious. If the pad of the tampon started to swell Millie would choke. I pushed my fingers into her mouth and tugged at the string but it wouldn’t budge. She was retching and clawing at her mouth and struggling to get away from me. Lucy was begging me to do something. I shouted for Josh. I tried the string again. It was no use the tampon wouldn’t budge and if I pulled the string too hard it would just come away.

  Josh came downstairs.

  I pushed Millie down and onto her stomach while the children put pressure on her back to keep her still. I forced her head to one side and jammed my knee into her mouth to keep her jaws open while I pushed my hand down and into her throat. I managed to grab the tampon between my forefinger and thumb and was able to ease it out. Just in time. It was really quite swollen.

  Panic over, I sat on the floor with Millie’s head between my legs stroking and shushing her until she stopped retching and became calm. Lucy was tearful. She had thought the dog would die. Josh was putting on a brave face. Millie seemed okay and we were all relieved.

  Then I had a scary thought. It actually dawned on me that had the dog needed the kiss of life, I probably would have done it. What was my life coming to?

  It was my day off from work, the sun was shining, the kids had missed the school bus, the dog had nearly choked to death on a tampon so, to the astonishment and delight of all concerned I took the unprecedented, executive decision to ring school and say we’d all come down with a bug; a twenty-four hour thing, then I packed a picnic and we all, including the dog, piled into the car and went to the beach for the day, all the while keeping a low profile in case the education people were on the lookout for truants.

  Later that night I rang my mother and told her about the morning’s drama with the dog. She said, “I told you those tampon things were dangerous, Joanne. If God wanted you to have cotton wool up there, he’d have made you like that!”

  24

  IT’S A COP-OUT

  Lucy and Josh were to stay with my mother, both complaining bitterly that they were old enough to be left at home on their own. As if! Lucy said Chloe’s parents trusted her to be left on her own.

  I said, “Chloe doesn’t have a brother.”

  Lucy said, “That doesn’t make any difference.”

  “Oh,” I said, “it does.”

  Josh said Jack is sometimes left on his own. I said, Jack doesn’t have a sister, and so it went on. I told them I was going out with the girls from work, just for a meal and I wouldn’t be late. Lucy said red and copper highlights seemed a bit of an extravagance just to go out with the girls from work, and if I could afford those, which must have cost a fortune, I could afford to adopt a gorilla. Josh said if Gran puts Jason and the Argonauts on again, he wouldn’t humour her this time, he’d keep his eyes shut till it was finished. I dropped them off still grumbling and complaining, then I returned home to get ready for my blind date with Colin.

  Arrangements had been made, via Nigel, for me to meet Colin in Marco’s, the little Italian place on the High Street. I liked Marco’s. I liked the red and white checked tablecloths and the dark wood furniture and I liked the dripping red candles in the utilitarian empty wine bottles in the centre of the tables. I liked the attentiveness of the uniformed waiters with their affected accents and Al Pacino noses and I liked the way the smell of garlic hits you as you walk through the doors. Marco’s isn’t a place you’d go with the girls, it’s a place for romance, for holding hands across the table, so here’s hoping…

  The taxi got there before my mind did. It pulled up while I was still rehearsing my walk on scene. I wasn’t ready. I hadn’t decided what my adopted persona should be. Should I go in smiling, confident. Blind date! Bring it on! Or should I be shy, reticent, coy… be gentle with me? One thing was certain, I couldn’t go in looking the way I felt, as if I was about to meet an untimely end at the hands of someone who, for all I knew, could be the next Fred West, albeit with a police uniform and a truncheon at home. Perhaps I should go around the block a few more times, like they did in the films when the bride had arrived at the church before the groom. Or perhaps I should just go home.

  The driver asked for the fare and I fiddled in my purse then lost concentration and looked out of the window. The door to Marco’s was inviting with its gleaming brassware and rich mahogany wood, and I knew inside it would be cosy with couples; intimate, or hoping to be. Yet I was about to be coupled with a complete stranger. He could be anyone. Peter Sutcliffe, anyone. Why was I putting myself through this? Cheering up some saddo! Come off it, Joanne. Who are you trying to kid? Dawn French meets the Samaritans you are sooo not. You’re here because in your own stagnant little pond the prospect of a bit of excitement, whatever the packaging, floats your boat. So who’s the saddo now, eh! And don’t think Colin won’t have realised that. He probably thinks he’s doing you the favour. How many women would agree to a blind date unless they were desperate?

  The driver looked at me through the rear view mirror.

  “Have you got the fare then, or what?”

  “Oh yes, sorry. I was miles away.”

  “Which is where I should be, so if you don’t mind…”

  I paid the fare and stepped out and onto the pavement. I stood in the street like one of the concrete bollards, staring at the door to Marco’s, unable to move while the taxi sped off.

  My mother thought I was out with the girls, so if I ended up dead in a ditch, she would be no help.

  Nigel and Alison knew where I was and who I was with so if I was to come to a sticky end, they’d be able to point the finger. But what good would that do me if I was dead in a ditch and my children motherless?

  With a bit of luck, Colin would have h
ad second thoughts and not turned up anyway. Or without the luck he would be sitting inside, checking his watch, drumming the table with his fingernails and wondering where the hell I was. And with my luck, I knew which one it would be.

  So, I straightened up, took some deep breaths told myself to get a grip, because if Colin was inside he was probably feeling just as nervous as I was and just think how much worse he would feel if instead of cheering him up, I stood him up?

  A few more deep breaths, a smiley face and I dragged my feet in their concrete boots to the door, and walked through it.

  I looked around as a man jumped to attention. That must be him, I thought. I followed a uniformed waiter who showed me to the table where Colin was standing, straight as a lamp post and as if he was about to march on parade. The waiter pulled out a chair for me, then Colin and I sat down, in unison. I couldn’t help thinking it would have broken the ice a bit if he had been really naff, stood behind my chair, bent his knees as I sat down and said, “Let’s be havin’ yer.”

  He wasn’t a Robbie from the Loading Bay look-a-like, thank the Lord, but neither was he Leon from the Trading Office. He was broad and muscular with a jaw-line as square as a kitchen tile and if it was a cross between Arnold Swarzenegger and a Welsh rugby player that got your juices flowing, then Colin was your man. He was clean-shaven, soberly but immaculately dressed in a checked shirt, striped tie and knife-pressed chinos and he smelled nice. He was probably the most scrubbed-up man on the planet. What did it for me though was animation, twinkly eyes and a bit of stubble, but as I mentally crossed those off my wish list, I decided I’d settle for a smile and hopefully a bit of humour. But, it soon became apparent that Colin didn’t do smiling. Or humour. I kind of felt I might have my work cut out cheering him up; first impressions and all that.

  A smile was still stuck to my face, vacant, with not much behind it other than a touch of panic. When we were seated, and speaking as solemnly as if he was giving a statement in court about a murder, Colin knitted his brows together and said it was the first time he had been on a blind date and he didn’t mind admitting, he had been brickin’ it all week. Although, he added, he was pleased to see I didn’t have a face like a burglar’s dog.

  My smiley face jammed. I looked surreptitiously around hoping nobody had heard that. Even in my limited, very limited experience of chat-up lines, that one slid to the bottom of the pile. He said he’d never seen so many ugly, sloppy women around and, although Nigel had said I wasn’t one of them, he had still been worried, because after all, one man’s meat is another man’s poison.

  Bloody hell!

  We chose from the menu and ordered wine. A white wine spritzer for me, nothing too potent, in case of a quick getaway and a bottle of red for Colin. The conversation was, as expected, a bit stilted until I asked what had attracted him into the force; then I wished I hadn’t. He said, solemnly, that he had wanted to be a policeman from being a child. He said it was always the policemen in comics and on the telly that had caught his imagination. PC Plod in Noddy, the policeman in Punch and Judy, Starksy and Hutch, Elliot Ness, Ironside, Columbo, Dick Tracy, anything with cops in it… Kojak, Officer Dibble, Chief Wigham, Officer Barberry…

  I think it was around here I lost consciousness.

  Then I came to… Inspector Linley, Frost, Morse, Bergerac…Then the food came and to change the subject, I quickly told him about my interior design course. Now, if what had gone before was odd, what followed next had the element of the surreal about it, possibly to do with the fact that I had been married for years to someone who thought a shell suit under an anorak was as high fashion as it got. Colin, although still solemn but now with a discernible touch of animation, said he could tell I had good taste as soon as he saw my matching bag and shoes which picked out the tan colour in the pattern of my skirt. He said he liked the green diamante hair clip I was wearing which he thought was exactly right with the red and copper tones of my hair. He said he always noticed things like that, which I thought for a burly policeman with bulging biceps and an encyclopaedic knowledge of fictional policemen, seemed kinda cute. Odd, but cute-ish.

  He seemed to be getting into his stride. This was obviously what turned him on. He said my bag was exactly the right size for a shoulder bag, anything bigger would just look clumsy. He said his favourite bags of the season had to be the ones in the new pastels from Marc Jacobs. He asked where I’d bought the clothes I was wearing and before I could answer, he said, “Let me guess. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that skirt and top in Zara. Am I right?”

  I really wanted to think he had clocked the stock in Zara while grappling with a shoplifter. I really wanted to think that… I mean, I’d heard of the fashion police, but…

  I said he was right, the outfit was from Zara. He said he knew it, and he was pleased to see frilled-edged cardigans back for another season as he thought they were really feminine. He also thought the clothes in Pur Una had upped the profile of Marks and Spencer, and he had written to them to congratulate the buyers, although he did think the horizontal striped, high -necked cardigans with the different coloured buttons had had their day.

  This was sooo no longer cute, so I asked him how he found his Seafood Linguine. He said it was fine. He asked me about my Carbonara, I said it was very nice. He ordered another bottle of red, although I put my hand over my glass. Being entirely sure this was not my kind of date, I thought it best to keep that clear head for that quick get-away. I was going to ask him about his favourite holiday destination, but I had the feeling an afternoon checking the rails in Principles would have been as good for him as week in Alicante, and as he hadn’t asked me, I didn’t bother.

  Yet, I suppose in his own way, he was making an effort and as usual, I was being a nit-picking cynic. Okay, I decided I would put some effort in. He was interested in fashion, so what could I contribute to that. Who did I know on the designer front? There was Stella McCartney. Actually, me and Stell did have something in common. Both of us, along with the rest of the world, having intuitively marked Heather Mills’ card as a manipulative man-eater. This was long before it had dawned on poor old Sir Paul, hidden away as he was somewhere in the Mull of Kintyre with his sheep and his mega millions and his freezer full of Quorn and polluting the air with his wacky baccy. And even though lurid tales of Heather were being dredged up in every newspaper worldwide and Channel 4 had dedicated a whole programme to her wicked ways and even the dogs in the streets were barking their heads off about her; it seemed poor old Sir Paul, was the only person on the planet who hadn’t an inkling. Perhaps it’s just me, but I considered that divorce to be a blessing, because somehow, I just could never have brought myself to think of Heather as ‘Lady’ McCartney, it just would not come naturally. Anyway, I digress. What about the square shouldered jackets Stella was reinventing this season to wear with short skirts? Surely they’d be worth a mention. On the other hand, they’re nothing to get excited about. I’ll leave those jackets for her mate, Sylvester Stallone, they’d be right up his street, bulk him up a bit.

  Or there’s Vivienne Westwood, but I didn’t know enough about her to make a conversation with, except she’s that weird old bird who made safety pins fashionable and at some point married that geek from the Sex Pistols, Malcolm somebody or the other.

  Then for some reason I became silly. I asked him if he thought Donny Osmond pyjamas might make a come-back. He kind of glared at me over his glass. So I took that as a no. Cheering up a humourless policeman was proving to be no mean feat. There was a joke somewhere in the back of my mind about policeman’s balls, but it wouldn’t come to me. There was a distinct possibility it would have bounced off him anyway. I smiled secretly at my wit, admitted defeat, thought bugger this for a lark and concentrated instead on the desert menu and a very good-looking waiter at the bar.

  I was enjoying a silent moment of decadence over the prospect of tiramisu when Colin asked me what cream I prefe
rred. If I’d downed another glass or two of wine, there’s every possibility I would have tapped the ash off an imaginary cigar and said in my Groucho Marx voice (which I do very passably, actually) are we talkin’ haemorrhoid or vaginal thrush, Colin? Instead, I said, demurely, “Well I think I prefer full cream, I can’t be doing with that squirty stuff that disappears as soon as you put your spoon into it.”

  He rolled his eyes, he was obviously finding me extremely hard work. He said he meant face cream, the sort with pro-retinols and pentapeptides. I spluttered a mouthful of wine across the table then apologised profusely, saying I’d swallowed the wrong way.

  As the tasty looking waiter collected the desert order, he gave me a flirty look, or perhaps it was wishful thinking or perhaps it was the other way round.

  Ho-hum, I tapped the table with my fingernails and checked the date box on my watch. No – it wasn’t April 1st.

  The desserts came. Colin was hitting the wine a bit – a lot. He seemed to be getting slightly maudlin. He slumped onto the table swirling his Malibu ice cream with his spoon but not eating it, whereas I was positively devouring my tiramisu while keeping an eye on the good looking waiter.

  Colin was slurring. Not surprising really, after two bottles of red. He asked me what I couldn’t live without. I had the feeling he was thinking along the lines of Max Factor or Chanel. Still, I thought it only fair to give the question some credence, think about it for awhile, hum and ha, what could I not live without? It seemed like a sensible question so I stroked my chin, I cupped my forehead in my hand like the bust of ‘the thinker’, then, I counted on my fingers, “A pulse, my children, lipstick, peanut M&M’s, Kitchen Roll…”

  He interrupted and lunacy prevailing he said what he couldn’t live without was ‘Elle’ magazine.