‘Well, er …’
‘Mum, Charlotte isn’t slimming,’ Tessa interrupted. ‘She’s just naturally a slim type. And she’s also trying to finish an important piece of work.’
‘I won’t say another word. Work comes first – I know that.’ She turned to Charlotte, took her arm confidingly. ‘I spent whole evenings creeping round on tiptoe when Tess was doing her A-levels, or watching telly with the sound off, so’s I wouldn’t make any noise. I’m sure your mother did the same. I’d like to meet her sometime, if I ever get the chance. We mums must stick together. And it was a real pleasure meeting you, dear. Heat the quiche, if you can. They’re always nicer hot. And don’t forget …’
‘Mum!’
‘Okay, okay, I’m coming! Keep your hair on!’ April collected up her parcels, leaving an onion quiche for Charlotte, and a box of mini-pizzas, then teetered down the stairs, with Ken trundling along behind her. The noise of her high heels (and Ken’s white-fringed navy loafers) seemed to echo through the college, disturbing all the people trying to catch up on lost sleep. Tessa’s face was flaming, both on her account and Charlotte’s. It was shitty to be ashamed of your own mother, yet she could just imagine Charlotte wincing at that dire fake-satin dress – April’s current favourite – which had polka dots all over it, and a matching bow to clip on her bleached hair. And what in God’s name would she think of Ken, in that quite unspeakable blazer with its pseudo polo badge, when the nearest he’d ever got to a horse was probably losing all his money on it?
Now who was the snob? And snobbery was frowned upon at Balliol. None the less, she still felt mortified. She knew Charlotte wouldn’t say a thing, but the memory would grate, remain festering between them like another hopeless barrier. Even her mother’s name would be the subject of raised eyebrows. No one was called April – or not in Charlotte’s set. Charlotte’s mother was bound to be a Sarah, or an Elizabeth, or Margaret – something low-key and traditional – and she’d appear at college with her legal wedded husband, not some pick-up with a gold chain round his neck.
‘Slow down, Tess, for heaven’s sake, or we’ll break our blooming necks. Ken’s got this funny tendon, so he can’t go haring off like that. How you doing, Ken, love?’ She waited till he’d caught her up, then blew him a fond kiss. ‘We’ve been on our pins since half past ten this morning – set off from home at sparrow’s fart, and stopped in Henley for a coffee and a wee. Connie gave me the day off because I slogged my guts out yesterday. We didn’t get to bed till two, and even then I couldn’t sleep. I was that uptight, you see, ticking worse than the alarm-clock, trying to remember whether I’d put the chicken nuggets in the fridge, or left them out to give everyone wisteria. Anyway, here we are – though more thanks to Ken than me. I said to him, ‘‘Now listen, Ken, no way are we going to barge in on Tess until five o’clock at the earliest.’’ I do understand you’re busy with all these essays and what-have-you. We respect that, don’t we Ken?’
She turned to Ken for confirmation, but he was staring at the floor. ‘Ken’s got two daughters of his own, though they’re still at the Blue Peter stage. He’s a bit of a late starter, in more ways than one.’ She laughed and flicked her fringe back, squeezed his hand a moment. ‘I know it’s only five to four, but I hoped you might be finished, Toots, and could come out for a cuppa with us. We’ve found this lovely little place with warming-pans and whatsits on the walls. Cream teas, it said, and home-made cakes, though home-made means nothing nowadays.’ She paused for breath at the bottom of the stairs, then called to Ken, who was limping down the passage. ‘Whoa, there, Kenny boy, I don’t think we’re meant to go through there. It beats me how you ever find your way, Toots, what with all these different staircases and buildings. I can’t make head or tail of them. It’s left here, isn’t it?’
‘No, right.’ Tessa took her mother’s arm, tried to chivvy her along. They had now emerged into the garden quad, and would be seen by half the college if they didn’t get a move on. Several of her friends were sprawling on the grass, and would be alerted by her mother’s voice if she kept exclaiming over everything with such whooshes of delight.
‘Ooh, look! They’re playing croquet on the lawn. There’s posh for you! Do you play, Tessa, love?’
‘No, I don’t. Come on, Mum.’
‘I can’t understand why you keep rushing about like a steam engine. Where are we off to anyway?’
‘Just in here,’ said Tessa, stopping at the door at the bottom of her staircase. ‘I’m not that keen on going out, so I’ll make you tea in my room.’
‘But you haven’t got the home-made cakes.’
‘I’ve got some Lyons swiss roll.’
‘I can’t eat Lyons swiss roll with a row of corpses watching me. You ought to complain about that graveyard, Toots. It’s not healthy, living …’
‘I like the room.’
‘And I suppose you like shop cakes?’
‘Yes, I do. And will you please not call me Toots. And also please shut up. There are people trying to work here.’
Tessa wrestled with a surge of guilt as she watched her mother subside. The beaming face and dazzling bouffant hairstyle seemed to shrivel and collapse. Even the satin bow had flopped, and the jaunty jade-green polka dots had lost their bloom and shine. Tessa knew that she’d dressed up in honour of her ‘brilliant’ daughter and to be worthy of a city she regarded with the deepest awe. She could also see from April’s plastic carriers that she’d soon be showered with gifts – not just ham and mushroom vol-au-vents, but clothes and scent and souvenirs, books and sweets and chocolates. Her mother had always spoiled her; would spend her dismal week slaving for a pittance in hairdressers or dress-shops (or more recently a third-rate pub), then blue the lot on her ungrateful snobbish child. And it wasn’t only presents she’d received. April spread good cheer on everything, like jam, never bellyached or grizzled, or lamented her hard lot as single parent; wasn’t even jealous of Dave’s new wife and daughters; bought gifts for them as well. It could have been so different – a resentful bitter mother spitting at her ex; instilling in her daughter a vengeful hatred of men. Instead, her first shy boyfriends had all been warmly welcomed, made to feel at home; April sometimes even flirting with them herself. She was only thirty-eight; looked a good two decades younger than Charlotte’s grey-haired mother, with her classic clothes and staid conventional hairstyle.
‘Mum …’
‘What, dear?’
‘I’m sorry if I snapped. I’m just feeling a bit scratchy.’
‘That’s all right. I’m sorry too. I mean, I know you said we shouldn’t come without giving you any warning, but that’s Connie, isn’t it? We get days off when it suits her, never mind what we want. She’s always dreaming up these marvellous schemes – rotas and what-have-you – then chopping and changing right at the last minute, buggering us about. And anyway, it’s a problem getting hold of you when you haven’t got a phone. Actually, I did phone – left a message with this man …’
‘What man? You mean the porter?’
‘Yes. Though I can’t think why they’re called that. They don’t carry cases, do they?’ She gave a sudden laugh, as if her good spirits had come whooping back, rarely cowed for long. ‘I could do with a couple of porters, to help me lug this stuff around. Ken, watch out – more stairs! Tessa’s right up at the top.’
‘Look, give the bags to me, Mum.’
‘No, not with your bad back.’
‘What d’you mean? There’s nothing wrong with my back.’
‘I thought you said you’d pulled a muscle?’
‘No, that was Rob. He hurt it playing cricket.’
‘Ah, Rob, your famous mystery man! I can see you’re hiding him again. We missed him last time, didn’t we? He sounds a really nice type – the quiet sort, quiet and deep. You could invite him round for tea with us, if he doesn’t mind swiss roll. I’m sure we’d get on like a house on fire.’
‘He’s … out.’
‘Well, that
’s a shame. I’d love to see him in his whites. And talking of whites, there’s a lot of dreadful scruffs around, with dirty hair and their knees out of their jeans. We saw one boy with a ponytail and stubble, stretched out on the grass like those tramps on Clapham Common. It beats me why they don’t try and smarten up a bit. I mean, they’re all nobs from toffee-nosed schools, aren’t they? – and they look more like refugees. I hope your Rob’s not got a ponytail?’
‘No. Shortish back and sides.’
‘Thank heavens for that! Any chance of seeing him before we have to leave? Ken’d like to meet a fellow cricketer, wouldn’t you Ken?’
‘Yes,’ said Ken uncertainly, the first word he’d uttered yet beyond ‘Hello’ and ‘Pleased to meet you’ and ‘Well, er …’ He seemed bemused by his surroundings, bothered by the stairs, their steep and narrow treads accentuating his limp.
Tessa ran ahead, unlocked her room, then ushered them both in, feeling a sense of some relief that they were now corralled and contained, couldn’t nab a porter, or ask to be included in the croquet.
‘Cigarette?’ Ken offered, fumbling for his JPS, having dutifully agreed with April that the gravestones were a horror, and the room so dark it was like looking for a black cat in a coal hole.
‘No thanks, I don’t smoke.’
‘She’s always on at me, Ken – bombarding me with gruesome facts about bronchitis and lung cancer. Oh, I know you’re probably right, Tess, but it’s a funny thing, you know, I find smoking actually helps. The coughing seems to clear my chest.’
‘Mum, that’s just plain stupid.’ Tessa banged the cups down, angry with herself as much as with her mother. Ken must see her as a bad-tempered little prig. Nearly all her college friends smoked, and drank much more than she did, and stayed in bed till lunch-time instead of getting up for lectures. A lot of them smoked dope as well – another thing she funked, although she’d frequently been tempted at a party. It made her feel so out of things to refuse a joint as it passed from hand to hand – naive and unsophisticated, and also something of a spoilsport. But she dared not take the risk, feared it might affect her work. She lacked the others’ easy self-assurance; was still terrified of being booted out of college. One hangover too many, and she might be banished to the suburban wastes she’d sprung from – a pathetic failure prowling round the Job Centre, or sitting on her own poring over the ‘situations vacant’. And yet her tutors were all pleased with her, and even the undemonstrative Sylvester had deigned to praise her work today.
‘Hey, listen, Mum, we’ve got this new tutor, Ruth Sylvester. She’s a medievalist, a walking encyclopaedia, but not exactly generous with her praises. The most she’ll ever say about an essay is ‘‘not bad’’, or ‘‘tolerable’’, but she just told me half an hour ago that mine was excellent.’
‘Of course it was! You were always head and shoulders above the others in your class.’ April turned to Ken, blowing out a curl of lazy smoke. ‘She gets that from her father. He’s another brain-box, and always on the tin-tan. I’m not sure what the poor kid got from me.’
‘My size,’ quipped Tessa, observing the way her mother’s shiny skirt was straining over her ample hips and thighs. Though, apart from her large build, she was nothing like her mother. April had blue eyes – bulgy eyes which looked as restless as their owner, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets and find an urgent job to do. And her hair, beneath the peroxide, was somewhere between fieldmouse and wild rabbit, though it had been blonded for so long now, it had lost all its natural gloss. Her mother’s real attraction was in her flash-bulb smile, her exuberance and energy, her willingness to take on Fate and anything it hurled at her, and make her bouncy best of it. Tessa had sometimes watched her in the pub, swabbing fresh puke from the gents’ and humming ‘Oh, what a beautiful morning’ as she wrung out the stinking mop, or answering a customer’s rebuff with a cheery joke, a fondle of his arm. April didn’t believe in an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth, but would sacrifice her own eyes for anyone she loved; pluck out any vital organ a dear friend might require, and present it gift-wrapped with a silver bow on top. Even now, she was unpacking all the tins and bags, suggesting they had vol-au-vents as well as the swiss roll; fretting that the blouse she’d bought might not fit her daughter; explaining that the chocolates were the expensive sort with cream in, and that the book was ‘English Literature’ and full of lovely pictures.
‘It’s great, Mum, honestly. And the blouse is really pretty. You shouldn’t spend all your hard-earned money on me.’
‘I enjoy it, Toots. You know that.’
Tessa glanced anxiously at the clutter on the floor. Her tidy room had been totally transformed – tins and greaseproof paper, clothes and books and bags, littering the carpet or piled up on the chairs; her mother’s shoes kicked off, her lipstick on the cup, her fag-end in the saucer, her cheap scent hanging pungent in the air. Crazy to feel threatened. She could restore her usual order once they’d safely disappeared, and the food would be perfect to take to the rehearsal. She picked up the prawn tartlets, placed them on the desk. They’d keep cooler by the window.
‘Did I tell you, Mum, I’m acting in this play? It’s only a very minor part, but I’m really lucky to have it. Loads of other people turned up for the audition, even a girl who’s been to stage-school and has a mother who’s an actress – a real star in the West End.’
‘Your mother’s a star, dear – star of the Horse and Groom.’ April laughed and coughed at once, gulped tea as medication. ‘So when’s the opening night? We’ll make sure we’re there, won’t we, Ken, in our tiaras and our penguin suits, and we’ll present you with a big bouquet when you take your curtain call.’
Tessa didn’t answer. There wouldn’t be curtains, let alone a curtain call, and the standard dress for the audience would be sweatshirts and torn jeans. They were performing in a basement to a small and lukewarm audience of fellow undergraduates – those who could be prised away from parties, punts, or pub – and parents were most definitely taboo. She changed the subject quickly, replenished both their cups, watched a still self-conscious Ken uncurling his swiss roll, scraping off the filling, then attacking the dry sponge. She felt sorry for him somehow – obviously a shy man, with no gift for conversation, yet who was trying his stiff best to look at home.
‘How old are your two daughters, Ken?’ she asked. It was time she made an effort to include him, talked about his own life, instead of always hers.
‘Eight and nine.’ His accent was south London, flat and unexceptional.
‘Oh, nice. And where d’you live?’
‘Ashford.’
‘Ashford in Middlesex?’
‘No, Kent.’
‘D’you work in Kent as well?’
‘No, London. City Road.’
Straight answers to straight questions. Though there were other questions curdling in the room, ones she dared not raise. Where’s your wife? And are the girls with her? And what exactly are you doing with my mother?
There was a sudden awkward silence, as if her private thoughts had been flashed up on a screen, leaving Ken and April defensive and on edge. Her mother’s feet looked swollen from her tight ill-fitting shoes, and Ken had smeared butter-cream on his dapper royal-blue blazer. She suddenly longed to hug them both, ply them with champagne, pin medals on their chests or loop garlands round their necks, in return for their own generous cornucopia, their praise of her, their homage. And all she’d done instead was hustle them out of sight, pour them tea in cups which didn’t match, and serve them stale shop cake.
She jumped up from the floor, almost capsizing her own cup. ‘Listen, I’ve got a great idea! Why don’t we go punting? The rain’s stopped now and we could buy some wine, and I’ll punt you down the Cherwell in traditional Oxford style.’
She watched her mother resurrect like a Heineken advertisement; her curves and hair and smile and breasts all perking up and plumping out, in instant magic fashion; words and cake-crumbs overflowing
as she burbled with excitement.
‘And Ken would love it, wouldn’t you, Ken? He’s got this yen for water. Hey, that’s a poem, almost – Ken and yen. Your Mum’s a poet now, Tessa, as well as a big star. And Ken’s a water-baby. Remember that little spaniel Uncle Norman had – Sally, was it, or Sukie? – I always got their names mixed up. Anyway, take her near a river or some filthy muddy pond, and in she went – splash, wallop! Well, Ken’s very much the same, except he prefers to keep his fur dry. But any sort of boat and he’s slavering at the chops. In fact, that reminds me, Tessa – his brother’s got this cabin cruiser, just bought it on the cheap, and they’re christening it on Saturday week – a big thrash on the Thames. We were hoping you could come. Could you get away, d’you think, just for that one evening?’
Tessa hovered by her desk, pretending to consult her college diary, though she knew perfectly well that Saturday week was blank. Blank and coloured crimson, blank and fizzing like champagne. She hadn’t had a chance to fill it in yet, and had actually forgotten it for the last half hour or more, incredible as that seemed.
‘No, I’m terribly sorry, I can’t. We’re … er … rehearsing all that day.’
‘But they won’t miss you, will they, Toots, if you’ve only got a tiddly part?’
‘Yes … I mean … I’m afraid I really can’t get out of it. We’re so short of rehearsal time, they’re fanatic about people showing up. This is the busiest term of all, you see. There are so many other distractions and …’ She broke off, started clearing up the plates. Distractions like Dr Michael Edwards, who had invited her out on the triumphant eleventh of May, not for a mere morning, but for the whole glorious endless day. She turned towards the window to hide her stupid grin, longed to tell someone, if only the stained and flaking gravestones: ‘I’m going out with this fantastic maddening guy who’s named after an archangel.’
Michael, Michael Page 5