Tessa ignored his sarcasm. Her thoughts were back with Michael, wondering if he’d changed his mind. He might be feeling guilty about having agreed to the deception, and so decided not to come. After all, if he’d been delayed by something unavoidable, wouldn’t he have phoned? And he only lived four miles away, in Teddington, so it wasn’t a question of hold-ups on the motorway. She closed her bedroom door, went over to the mirror to take another look at her swept-up hair, her glossy coral lipstick and matching silky blouse. She’d started taking trouble with her clothes again, especially since Michael had told her she was beautiful. He’d said it very shyly, and she had blushed as well, though hardly knowing why.
She sprawled across the bed, picked up the Observer, but found she couldn’t concentrate at all. If Michael didn’t show up, or – worse – broke off the relationship, she would never find the more important Michael. One led to the other – that she knew intuitively. She prowled downstairs again, rang his home, relieved when there was no reply. He must be on his way; perhaps had taken a wrong turning, or got stuck in the one-way system in Kingston. She mooched back to the sitting-room, dismayed to see her mother squeezed up on the sofa with Frank and Eric either side, all three of them knocking back the sherry.
‘Mum, please don’t drink so much.’ Michael would assume they were a family of alcoholics. She’d been paralytic herself the first night that she’d met him, so it wouldn’t look too brilliant if she introduced a mother in much the same condition.
‘We haven’t any alternative,’ grinned Frank. ‘If we’re not allowed to eat, we’ve got to fill the hole with something.’
‘There’s some crisps and nuts and things,’ she said, glancing round the room. ‘I put them out in little wooden bowls. Where the hell have they all gone?’
‘In here!’ said Frank, slapping his primrose paunch.
‘Ate the bowls, too, did you?’ Eric asked sardonically.
Tessa noted his flushed face. He usually looked pasty, and this morning he had claimed to be half-dead, fighting off a stinker of a cold. At the time she’d worried about him passing on his germs to Michael, but if Michael wasn’t coming … She seized a glass herself, splashed some sherry in it, and was about to toss it back when they were all startled by the doorbell.
‘Prince Charming!’ Frank exclaimed.
‘Or Hurricane Higgins,’ April giggled. ‘Snookered!’
Eric leaned back in his seat, tilted his glass above his head, and tipped the last few drops of sherry straight on to his tongue. ‘Or it could be the bloke who reads the meter.’
‘Not on Sunday, you dolthead. More like some perishing god-man. Brethren, Are We Saved?’
‘Yep,’ cried April. ‘We are! I think it must be Michael.’
Tessa was already at the door, but her welcoming smile froze in horror as she stared at the figure on the doorstep – his hair awry, black grease on his best jacket, and a rent in the right sleeve. He was clutching a large bunch of pink carnations; his eyes distraught, like Jasper’s when she had to say goodbye and leave for home. He leaned against the door-frame, panting, almost hoarse, the words tumbling out in short apologetic gasps.
‘So terribly sorry … My starter-motor jammed … I had to crawl under the car to free it … even then it didn’t work … I did try to ring, but the phone was out of order. In the end, I left the car and walked – or rather ran. These are for your mother.’
Tessa stammered out her thanks, trying to play the gracious hostess, but uncomfortably aware of the official hostess hovering behind her. Her mother was studying the ‘boyfriend’ with highly critical eyes, her face registering its instant disapproval. Michael could never be called good-looking – he was too drab and short for that – but he was always neat and tidy, except on the one day that it mattered. His clothes were not just stained, but creased; he’d transferred a gungy smudge of oil from his hands to his right cheek, and his brow was filmed with sweat. He even smelt of sweat: a ripe, offensive smell which overlaid a last faint trace of aftershave.
‘Mum, this is … er … Michael,’ she said, unnecessarily, praying that they’d like each other, despite the bad beginning. ‘I’m afraid his car broke down.’
‘Yes, I can see it did,’ said April.
‘How do you do.’ Michael proffered a hand, realized it was grease-stained, retracted it again, let out another flurry of apologies.
‘You’d better have a wash.’ April’s voice was terse. ‘I’d suggest a full-scale bath, if you weren’t so late already.’
‘Mum!’ hissed Tessa sotto voce.
April ignored her. ‘My daughter will take you to the bathroom,’ she said grandly, making ‘my daughter’ sound proprietary, as if she were already warning Michael not to trespass on her rights.
‘Mum, look! Michael’s brought you these lovely flowers.’ Tessa placed the bouquet in her mother’s arms, hoping it might mollify her. She was caught between the two of them, aware of April’s bitter disappointment in the man she’d been imagining as her future son-in-law; yet equally in tune with Michael’s utter wretchedness. Each was seeing the other at their worst – Michael shaken, stuttering, devoid of all his usual friendly charm; her mother hostile and aloof, nothing like her normal bouncy self. Tension seemed to be choking through the hall like a cloud of acrid smoke, so she ushered Michael up the stairs, away from April’s scrutiny.
‘Help yourself to anything you want,’ she urged as she left him in the bathroom, hoping to God that he’d borrow her deodorant, as well as soap and flannel. She waited for him in her room, knowing how alarmed he’d feel having to walk into the sitting-room alone. She was so keyed up herself, she began prowling backwards and forwards in the tiny space between the wardrobe and the door. She wondered what her mother was doing – drowning her sorrows in Harvey’s Bristol Cream, or regaling Frank and Eric with her first appalled impressions of the dumb dishevelled tramp who had dared to take an interest in her daughter?
She avoided looking at the clock, though every minute that passed seemed like half an hour. Michael would be even more unpopular if he didn’t come down soon. Perhaps he was so shaken by her mother’s cool reception that he couldn’t find the courage for an encore. She crept out of her room and stood listening outside the bathroom door; heard a tap running and then a nervous cough.
‘Almost ready, Michael?’ she called out.
‘Yes, coming!’
He sounded very flustered, and when he appeared a moment later, his hair was neatly combed, but there was a red mark on his cheek, where he’d been scrubbing at the oil. He smelt of Dabitoff, not sweat; must have found the bottle in the bathroom cabinet, but found it too late, when he’d already sloshed the stains with water. His jacket was a mess. Curdled grease and water had made damp grey blotches all across one side. His eyes were still a hurt dog’s eyes – a dog starved, abandoned, beaten.
‘That’s better,’ she said encouragingly, leading him downstairs like a small shy child reluctant to brave the party. She’d already warned him about the lodgers, but they were usually relatively sober, not exhaling sherry fumes.
‘Eric, this is Michael. Michael, Frank.’
‘Hi-de-hi!’ boomed Frank. ‘Hear you had a spot of bother with your old banger?’
‘Well, actually, it’s not that old. It’s …’
‘I’ve never had a car myself,’ Eric remarked morosely. ‘What is it they say? ‘‘If God intended us to drive, He’d have created us with wheels.’’’
‘That’s not a bad idea, chum.’ Frank punched his fellow lodger on the arm. ‘When I was having all that trouble with my verrucas, I’d have gladly traded my poor old trotters for a decent set of wheels.’
‘Where’s Mum?’ asked Tessa, motioning Michael to a chair.
‘Dishing up the lunch.’
‘But Michael hasn’t had a drink yet. Would you like a glass of sherry, Michael?’
‘I’d say no if I was you, chum,’ Frank chipped in. ‘There isn’t any left.’ His uproarious laugh h
it Michael like a brick.
Tessa offered him a tomato juice instead, then took up a position which would block Eric from his view. The bunged-up lodger was busy blowing his nose, and she knew from past experience that the process would be followed by a meticulous examination of the contents of his handkerchief.
Frank pulled his chair up closer and leaned across companionably to Michael. ‘I hear you run a golf club, Mike.’
‘Well, no. I only …’
‘Marvellous game, innit? Are you teaching Tess to play?’
‘I haven’t really …’
‘She’s a clever girl, is Tess. I’ve got my money on her. She’ll either be another Maggie Thatcher, or Richard Branson Mark Two.’
‘Dinner is served,’ announced April, flouncing into the room. ‘Would you do the honours, Frank, and carve?’
‘Right you are. Though if the knife’s as blunt as it was last week … I couldn’t even kill my ex-wife with it, and she’s so fat and floppy, a butter-knife would do her in.’
He offered Tessa his arm, escorted her into the kitchen, as if in deliberate challenge to Michael, who was left with Eric and his handkerchief.
‘You sit next to me, Michael,’ April ordered. She made it sound a threat, though neither of them sat, in fact, since she was busy transferring dishes from the oven to the table, while Michael waited politely till she’d finished.
‘And Tessa, you sit there and keep an eye on Frank. I don’t want him ruining the beef – though it’s already burnt to a cinder. We were meant to eat an hour ago.’
‘Don’t be silly, Mum. We said lunch at half past one, and it’s only five to two.’ Tessa tried to catch Michael’s eye, to let him know she was on his side, and that he mustn’t worry about her idiotic mother, who merely needed humouring. But he stood staring at the floor, shoulders hunched, hands clamped to the back of the chair. She had never known her mother behave as shrewishly as this – it simply wasn’t in character – nor had she seen Michael quite so cowed.
‘Do sit down,’ she coaxed him, though he seemed still more uneasy once he was squashed up at the table between Eric’s snuffles and her mother’s plunging cleavage. She must make some conversation, choose a subject which was safe and painless, or would at least stop Frank from embarking on some risque joke, or Eric discussing the condition of his internal organs, one by morbid one. ‘How’s Jasper?’ she asked brightly, though she’d seen him only yesterday.
The hazel eyes softened and relaxed. ‘He’s absolutely fine.’
‘Is Jasper your kid?’ Frank quizzed him, chopping off a lump of fat, then cutting chunky slices from the joint. ‘Funny how kids today get landed with these fancy names. My boss’s son’s called Ferdinand. I ask you! Though of course he is a dago, so what can you expect? Got just the one boy, have you?’
‘No, I …’
‘Jasper’s Michael’s dog, Frank.’
‘Dogs is better than kids,’ Eric put in darkly, ‘if you ask me.’
‘No one did,’ said Frank. ‘What sort of dog you got then, Mike? Pit bull terrier?’
Tessa frowned at Frank’s derisive snort of laughter. Michael was so sensitive, he’d imagine Frank was getting at him, implying that he looked the type to own a miniature poodle.
‘Jasper’s a West Highland White,’ she explained, wondering why she was answering for Michael, though painfully aware that he hadn’t yet completed one full sentence. Her mother would be judging him as dumb in every sense.
‘Never heard of ’em,’ said Frank. ‘The only dog I ever had was a fucking pedigree mongrel.’
‘Watch your language, Frank.’ April passed the vegetables to Michael, though she did it almost grudgingly, as if she would prefer him to get up and leave before he’d touched a mouthful.
‘You’re a fine one to talk!’ Frank hacked into the bone; juices from the joint spurting on to his sweatshirt. ‘I learnt half the swear-words I know from you.’
‘That’s a blooming lie! I never swear, do I, Toots?’
‘No,’ lied Tessa in her turn, in an attempt to keep the peace.
‘And I suppose you never drink?’ mocked Frank. ‘Which is a crying shame, when I’m just about to open this Château Tesco’s, 1992. Drop of wine for you, Mike, when I’m through with all the carving?’
‘Yes, please. I’d …
‘Count me out,’ said Eric. ‘That flippin’ sherry’s still giving me gyp. The doctor said I’ve got a dicy liver, so I shouldn’t really touch the stuff.’
‘If you gave up doctors instead of drink, you might be less of a misery-guts.’ Frank speared a slice of beef, dangled it in front of Eric’s face. ‘D’you want this, pal? Or is red meat on the no-no list as well? They say it’s …’
‘Talking of doctors,’ April interrupted, turning back to Michael. ‘My daughter used to go out with a surgeon – an Oxford man, quite brilliant, and still only in his twenties.’
Tessa dropped the serving-spoon, spattering peas across the tablecloth. She began to scoop them up, so livid with her mother that she couldn’t seem to control her hand, and was spilling more than she retrieved. If she’d been near enough, she would have kicked her under the table, but April was still prattling on to Michael.
‘Unfortunately, I never met him. Tessa’s always very cagey about her boyfriends, never bothers to tell me the important things, like how old they are, or …’ April’s final words were drowned as she gulped a draught of wine. She put her glass down not exactly with a bang, but with just enough vehemence to startle the whole table.
The silence which followed seemed to last for ever. Only Frank was eating, his energetic chewing sounding louder in the hush. ‘Nice beef,’ he observed, at length, ‘though I wouldn’t say no to a spot of horseradish. Mike, it’s down your end.’
Michael sprang to life, reminded of his duties as a polite considerate guest. He passed the horseradish to Frank, the mustard to Tessa, and the cruet set to April – a pair of plastic figures dressed as bride and groom. ‘Salt and pepper for you, Mrs Reeves?’
‘Do call me April, please. I know we’re not quite the same generation, but no need to stand on ceremony.’
Tessa picked her knife up, put it down again. So it was the age thing which was really bugging April. Michael was in fact very nearly old enough to be her mother’s father, though she hadn’t worked that out before today. She’d been lying when she claimed that she didn’t know his actual age – he’d be fifty-four next month – but it had never seemed important. Only now did she realize how much it bothered April; appeared to make her mean and spiteful, drive her almost mad. And Michael was looking older by the minute; shrivelling as he sat there; his pale complexion and quiet-toned clothes fading even further in contrast with her mother’s screaming pink. If only she hadn’t dragged him here, away from his own home, where his age was immaterial, everything was safe and quiet, and meals were calm oases. They had hardly started the lunch yet; had still to work through pudding, cheese and coffee. How would she survive, or Michael, for that matter?
‘Are you in work?’ Eric was just asking him. He must have missed the bit about him running the golf club; always tended to assume that people were either unemployed (as he’d been himself, last year), or else in imminent danger of the sack. But at least he was being polite, making an effort to include Michael in the conversation.
‘Yes, I’m the assistant secretary at High Pines Golf Club in Walton.’
‘Men aren’t usually secretaries,’ April objected, stabbing a potato on her fork.
‘Well, actually, they often are at golf clubs.’
‘When do you get promoted?’ April continued, ignoring his remark. ‘To secretary, I mean, rather than assistant?’
‘Oh, I’d never be made the secretary! They’re VIPs. The one at High Pines is an ex-wing-commander and used to be a big wheel in the City.’
‘So what do you do – the typing?’ April blotted her mouth, leaving a fuchsia-coloured lip-print on her paper serviette.
�
��Well, no, I …’
‘Mum! You’re completely out of touch. Of course Michael’s not a typist – he’s in charge of the computer. It’s all technology these days – complicated databases and spreadsheets and what-have-you.’
‘I never trust them computers,’ Eric interjected. ‘They’re spyin’ on us, I reckon – got all our private details on their files.’
‘What are you so scared of, mate? You a terrorist or something? Or one of them serial killers that’s always in the headlines?’ Frank removed a piece of gristle from his mouth, then shovelled in more sprouts. ‘And if you’re planning another blood-bath, do me a favour, will you, and bump off my ex-wife while you’re about it?’
Tessa squashed a pea to nothing with her fork. Couldn’t Frank avoid the subject of ex-wives, especially their gory deaths? ‘I’m just going to get a hankie,’ she informed the company. She had to leave the table, at least for a few minutes; couldn’t bear to hear her mother continue her hatchet-job on Michael. She’d already demolished his job, and was now watching him surreptitiously, about to pounce on something else – his height, his hair, his tie. And his beautiful carnations were still lying in their paper on the draining-board, not young enough nor bright enough to have merited a vase.
‘You haven’t caught Eric’s cold, have you?’ April’s eyes swivelled from Michael to her daughter, their hostility undimmed.
‘You can’t catch colds,’ Frank pronounced. ‘They proved it at that research place. If you’re run down, you get ’ em anyway, and if you’re not, you don’t.’
‘What about germs?’ barked Eric. ‘Or them viruses and things?’
‘What about ’em?’ countered Frank. ‘We all know they make a beeline for you. Pity no one else is quite so keen.’
Tessa edged out of the room and sloped upstairs. Her ‘family’ had never seemed so crass. If only she and Michael could slip away, boil a couple of eggs and eat them on their laps in the peace of Elsham Close, then go and pick up Jasper and …
‘Tess!’ hissed a voice outside her door – Frank’s baritone, though slightly slurred from wine.
Michael, Michael Page 37