‘Coke?’ Jacqui whispered reverently.
‘Not just any coke, eighty quid VIP, the big daddy! This will knock your socks off, make you dance all night, and other stuff! I need a holiday from my head for a few hours.’
‘Where did you get it?’ I asked, knowing full well. Ali looked at me, a hint of guilt clouding her face.
‘Woody. He got it for Dara. But I haven’t given it to him yet. I’m too pissed off about Hong Kong.’
‘Well, it’s shame to waste it…’ Jacqui puckishly intimated. ‘What have you girls done to me? I never used to do drugs. Fuck it, I’m officially divorced, I can do anything I like!’
We weaved our way back to the bar area, glassy-eyed and giggling.
‘Oh, right. I know what you’ve been doing.’ Woody laughed, his eyes expertly probing for evidence.
‘I don’t know what you mean, Officer.’
‘You’re bolloxed! Come on, share the goods.’
‘It’s not mine.’
*
At some point the clandestine sachet was passed round and the party started properly, ending up at two a.m. in the dimly lit kitchen with a closing-time mob of complete strangers, one of whom Jacqui was snogging in the soggy back garden highlighted by the intruder lights.
‘I’m sorry for dropping that news on Ali,’ Dara said sheepishly while I poured us both a glass of red wine. ‘It’s been in the pipeline for so long, way before I met her.’
‘Don’t apologise to me. You have to do what’s right for you. She really likes you and is bound to be upset. But why did you start seeing her if you always knew you would leave?’
‘I didn’t know. It was just talks before Christmas. Nothing was certain, and then suddenly everything moved so fast. The timing isn’t great. I think she’s lovely… and Grace is a little darling. I don’t want it to end just because I’m going away.’
‘But it’s such a long way. It’s not like you’re going to Paris or even New York. Hong Kong is half the world away.’
‘I’ll come back often, and she and Grace can always visit. Hong Kong is an amazingly colourful and cultural city. So much to do.’ I could tell he was already there in his head, planning his new life.
Will had gone home and come back again, using one of his many ‘Great Escape’ tactics to tunnel his way back to the outside world.
‘What did you do this time?’ I asked, mystified by what Sarah saw in him.
‘I got in bed after the pub, fed Oliver when he woke at one, then said I was going to have a cup of tea, got dressed and came out here. I’ve left a half-drunk cup of tea in the kitchen so she’ll think I slept on the sofa. As long as I’m back by five she’ll never know.’ In the death grip of coke mania where my jaw involuntarily clamped shut every two minutes, my brain raced through judgements, trying them on for size like snatching products from the shelves of Supermarket Sweep. One minute I thought Will was a lowlife arsewipe, but the next I cast him as a total genius for managing to do what he wanted as well as fulfilling his duties as a husband and father. What did I care? None of it affected me.
‘Do you want half a pill?’ Woody whispered conspiratorially in my ear as I sat curled on his knee in one of the Habitat chairs.
‘Why, do you have them with you?’
He shrugged.
‘Do you always have stuff?’
‘No, I knew it was going to be a big night. I haven’t done anything for a while. Come on, it’ll be fun.’
‘You know I admire you, Amanda,’ Will said unexpectedly. He was sitting on the floor at Woody’s feet, sipping a beer.
‘How come?’
‘How you’ve handled the whole Sam leaving. I think Sarah would have killed me publicly and made my life hell. We all think it was a pretty shit thing to do.’
‘It was.’
‘It’s good to see you’re OK now, with the baby and everything. That can’t be easy. But you seem to be handling it.’
Oh, but I’m not! I wanted to yell at him. You have no idea how much it is still NOT OK.
Woody pressed half a crumbling pill into my palm. I should have thrown it in the bin, or down the loo on hearing Will’s rose-tinted potted version of my life, implying everything was equal now because I had a boyfriend. Like the kids weren’t hurting almost two years on, so no one had to worry about poor Amanda, even though I was still married to Sam, still wrangling over who owned what percentage of the house to ‘make it fair’, still having dreams that we were married, happy and in love, only to wake and discover it was all still painted with the same shitty brush. Living in a commune (which I loved and had saved me) was fun but none the less I would gladly swap it all to be raising my family with their father living under the same roof. Did all of that account for my life fitting into a recognisable box you can tick as normal? Just because things appear ‘normal’ doesn’t mean they are. People wear masks and act out elaborate plays to cover up words they really want to say and feel. And right then, like Alice seeking the White Rabbit, I chose to eat the forbidden cake, to blot it all out.
The immediate reaction was to dry-heave in the kitchen sink as it hit my system, landing on top of the building blocks of coke and wine. The next was to drink pints of water to quell the nausea. That didn’t work. Neither did dancing, nor wine, so I faced defeat and let Woody guide me up the stairs to bed where he stroked my head. Lying under the duvet, away from the rest of the party, my body relaxed and welcomed the ecstasy as it caressed my heart with a diaphanous sensation of wellbeing.
‘I’m battered again,’ I murmured, my skin tingling, my teeth clenching. I craved cuddles, which opened up negotiations for inevitable drug-fuelled sex, inhibitions dancing to a tune only I could hear.
20
Another Star in Heaven
‘Can you come home now?’ Ursula was urging me down the phone at ten that night. The kids were asleep upstairs at Mel’s. It would mean dragging them out of bed and into an inhospitable cold car.
‘Not really. I’m miles away and the kids are all asleep. It’s pretty late. What’s up?’
‘Ali’s dad’s died.’
I sat down abruptly on the nearest chair in Mel’s cosy living room, an audible ‘Oof’ escaping my lips.
‘Are you OK?’ Mel mouthed from the opposite sofa. I shook my head in a stupor, the words rattling against my skull. Pete was dead.
‘Oh God,’ I groped around for an appropriate response and found myself severely lacking. ‘How dreadful. Is she OK? I mean, I know she isn’t, but what happened?’
‘He just dropped down dead, about an hour ago. Anne called me first because she knew you were away, asked me to tell Ali face to face, before she called on the landline. She didn’t want her being on her own.’
‘Fuck. Look, I’ll see what I can do. I can go and wake the kids. I can be back there by midnight, maybe a bit after.’
‘No! That’s madness. I’ll stay here the night. Er… Jim is here, too.’
‘What’s he doing there?’ I snapped.
Ursula lowered her voice. ‘Ali rang him so he could deal with Grace for her.’
‘But you could have done that.’
‘I know,’ she sighed resignedly. ‘He’s here and Grace is up because of all the commotion. I couldn’t ring Ali to let me in – her phone was dead – so I had to bang on your door twenty minutes ago and wake her up. It was pretty hideous.’
‘It’s so shocking!’ I cried, the adrenalin waning, clearing the way for genuine emotions, my eyes stinging. ‘God, poor Ali. Does she want to talk?’
‘She said not. I think if she hears your voice she’ll break down. She’s holding it together really well. I ran down to get emergency wine, so we’re drinking that.’
‘I’ll leave first thing in the morning.’
‘I think she’s off to her brother’s in the morning. They’re going to see if they can get a flight out to Spain to help Anne deal with it all.’
‘OK, well, I’ll come back anyway.’
After g
oodbyes I put my phone down, still in shock, hands shaking, sweat pricking my palms.
‘Oh, poor Ali. Not what she needs right now. Not with Dara leaving,’ Mel sympathised.
*
Beardy Weirdies say that dead people reveal their presence by leaving signs – white feathers, coins or by mysteriously moving inanimate objects.
Coins started materialising round the house in the most curious places. One day, soon after Pete died, when I was taking the girls to school, I found a brand-new pound coin by the front door. I didn’t drop it. One minute it wasn’t there, the next it lay auspiciously on the welcome mat glinting in the weak sunlight pouring in through the glass panels. Odd pieces of Ali’s jewellery vanished, only to reappear wedged underneath the edge of the carpet in the attic by her writing desk, nowhere near her keepsake box. Coins surfaced under the living-room table and once in the bathroom. Obviously Ali and I, and in some cases, Woody and Dara, could have been dropping them, but in the run up to the funeral it was like an epidemic. Either that or we all had holes in our pockets and bags.
On the drive down to the burial with Ursula, I’d felt fine, apart from the usual dread of these things. Then, standing in the mud, my pink spotty wellies incongruously matched with my gossamer-thin red shift dress and fake fur jacket, I was bobbing up and down on a sea of completely unexpected nausea. We were bang in the middle of natural burial woods in Hampshire, the dark green ridge of the South Downs protruding like a tombstone through the veil of budding trees behind us. Graveside at Pete’s funeral was the most inconvenient place to begin with a delayed hangover. The previous night, Woody and I had drunk a bottle of wine toasting Pete’s memory.
‘I only met him once. Years ago, when she first bought that flat and had a party. He was there, wasn’t he?’
I nodded. ‘Yes, he re-plastered the entire flat and put the new kitchen in. Looked amazing. Anyway, here’s to Pete,’ I cheered. ‘Take a rest from building in the afterlife.’
When we went to bed that night, a pound coin rested on the threshold of my bedroom.
A measly half-bottle of wine cannot cause this kind of reaction, I reasoned, forcing myself to concentrate on what Ali’s older brother was saying. Don’t be sick, don’t be sick, don’t be sick. Hang on, weren’t you supposed to say what you wanted in a positive light rather than what you didn’t want to happen? Feel well, feel well, feel well.
Maybe it was all the green juice and Chlorella powder I had necked first thing on an empty stomach. It was probably that, or the apple I had eaten before I got in the car; they can be a bit acidic.
It began to spit and I clutched my coat around me. Fake fur wasn’t adequate protection against rain. I would begin to smell of wet dog once the water penetrated it. As soon as I thought that, bile rose sharply up my throat. I swallowed it back down, losing an uphill battle against my saliva glands that had now decided to wet my oesophagus to ease the vomit on its way. Fuck it. I looked wildly around, seeing where I could make a discreet and hasty exit, but was blocked by a row of people behind. Thank God I wasn’t front row with Dara.
Ali and the family huddled together by the grave after the coffin had been lowered haltingly into the hole. Everyone was engrossed in Dan’s eulogy, his speech caught on the breeze, elevating the words above our heads, birds riding a slipstream. Both Ali and Anne, standing side by side, Ali clutching Grace on her hip, wore bright pink dresses underneath their overcoats, a defiant gesture that Pete would have approved of. He had been a congenial man and wearing black would have kindled his loathing of pomp and circumstance.
Dan was recounting a story about how his dad had once been an amateur wrestler. I had a vague memory of a photograph of Pete in a proper wrestling outfit, like Big Daddy or Giant Haystacks in a bright red back-to-front elastane swimming costume, except he was tall and skinny and ginger.
The nausea was getting stronger. Mercifully, my handbag was empty save for my keys, sunglasses case and my purse. It was usually rammed with receipts, and other detritus but I had culled the lot for a more elegant bag to go with my funeral attire. I pretended to bend down on the ground and ferret around for something in my bag while I heaved silently. Nothing sprang forth apart from water. Then a second wave undulated up my throat, this one was more substantial and splattered the inside of my bag with the mulched-up apple I had eaten at seven a.m. I had successfully managed to be as unobtrusive as I could, due to the fact there wasn’t much for my stomach to eject. I looked up, sunglasses still in place, wiping my mouth with a tissue. Just like that, the nausea evaporated as rapidly as it had transpired, leaving behind a leather-clad sick bag.
‘You OK?’ Ursula hissed in my ear. I hoped I didn’t smell of sick. ‘I thought you’d fainted. Heavy night?’
‘No, not at all. I remembered my phone was on in my bag and switched it off.’ She nodded.
Back at Ali’s brother’s house in Dorking, and after I had rinsed my bag out and chucked it in the boot of my car, a Sri Lankan buffet welcomed the guests back from the burial. Dan’s wife’s family were Sri Lankan and had very kindly catered.
‘Well done, Ali, you’re being amazing,’ I said, touching her elbow as she poured wine and buzzed around making sure everyone was topped up.
‘Keep busy, that’s my motto. Everyone’s telling funny stories about Dad. It’s just what Mum needs.’ The atmosphere was certainly unlike any funeral I had been to before. It was more like a party, the small back garden decked out with bunting and vases of flowers on tables covered in chintzy cloths, endless champagne and the delicious-smelling food.
‘Your dad would have loved this, too,’ I said.
She nodded sadly and carried on flitting.
As a rule, I loved curry, but helping myself to an exceptionally spicy prawn dish, I could feel the clench of my stomach as it prepared to expel its contents once more. Nooooooooo! What was wrong with me? The smell of the spices had set off a chain reaction. This only ever happened when I was… Oh, dear God, no! How could this be?
*
‘How late are you?’ Jacqui asked. I was sitting despondently on the bottom stair in the hall. Ali had flown to Spain straight after the funeral and Chug was watching his diggers DVD, mesmerised.
‘I don’t think I am late. I had a period this month a few weeks ago. That’s why I’m not sure this is what it looks like.’
‘You can still have a bit of bleeding when you’re pregnant.’
‘I know. I had an entire period when I was pregnant with Meg.’
‘So, if this is how you are, then you might be more pregnant than you think you are. Just go and do it.’
Jacqui sat on the side of bath while I managed to squeeze out a wee onto the test stick.
‘How long do we wait?’ I asked her.
She scoured the notes for the answer. ‘Two minutes.’
I jammed the cap on the end and noticed a faint blue line rapidly developing before my very eyes.
‘Oh fuck, Jax.’ I held up the evidence, my hand shaking.
‘Hmm. Looks like you are definitely preggers, then. That line appeared in seconds.’
‘What do I do?’
‘What do you want to do?’
‘I have to tell Woody.’
‘Not if you don’t want to keep it. It might end up being more painful. Better he doesn’t know. Does he want kids?’
‘I think he does.’
‘Then…?’
‘Then, nothing. Oh shite, how on earth am I pregnant?’
‘You know about sex, right? And you have done it before and have three kids!’
‘Oh, ha ha. Yes! But we used a condom.’
‘Every time?’
‘I think so, though there was that drug-fuelled party a while ago when I don’t remember what happened, I was so knobbled. When Dara told Ali he was leaving.’
‘That’ll be it.’
We stood in silence. How could I be pregnant at thirty-nine with a part-time sailor-slash-builder’s baby whom I didn’t love because I s
till carried a torch for the father of my three children?
‘Do you want to keep the baby?’ Jacqui asked me carefully.
‘I don’t know.’
‘While you think about it, can we have a cup of tea?’
We trooped back down the stairs, the same stairs we had walked up five minutes ago when I wasn’t technically pregnant, when life was a lot less complicated, when I only had divorce worries, children worries, and money worries.
As Jacqui clinked mugs I rooted around in my bag for my phone, a text from Sam emblazoned across my screen. I didn’t need to open it. I already knew what it would say.
Carrie in labour. I don’t know how long we will be. Don’t tell the kids. I’ll let you know when we’ve got some news.
21
Brother from Another Mother
It’s a boy,
I texted Ali in Spain.
Poor Sonny. He won’t like that, will he?
No. I wish it had been a girl. At least the girls already have each other, Sonny is the only boy. And now he isn’t. Dreading his reaction.
Are you OK about the baby?
Not sure. It’s complicated.
That was an understatement.
How’s your mum? What’s going on?
Mum is amazing. Going through Dad’s stuff very slowly. We have had lots of tears. I think she’s jumped the first phase of grief and dived straight into anger.
Ouch. Keep her away from the mug cupboard!
*
The entrance to the clinic in Streatham was very discreet and set right back in the sun-dappled leafy grounds quite a way from the busy road. I had to state my name on the gate intercom and wait while they buzzed me through. I was expecting a few protestors, possibly an unsolicited flyer being rammed into my hand depicting dead foetuses. That had been my experience twenty years previously when I had arranged a friend’s abortion when we were at university. But today the gate was void of haranguers; all I could hear was the cheerful chirping of the birds in the trees that lined the path down to reception. Spring had most definitely sprung, with colourful bulbs in full bloom. I could see where a mower had culled the swathes of dying daffodils, a trail of butter-yellow confetti the only evidence until next year.
The Single Mums' Mansion Page 14