The WWW Club

by Anita Notaro

  She knocked gently and waited. By the sound of things all hell was breaking loose inside. When the door opened a very large dog threw himself at her and Ellie screamed and fell over. The beast had been strangely absent on her last visit, a clever move organized by Kate, she imagined.

  A pair of glassy eyes looked down at her as she struggled to escape a pink slimy tongue, but not before an elasticated spit had given way and got her in the eye. Her carefully coiffed bun had come undone and there were paw marks on her blouse.

  “Rashers, come here. I’m so sorry about this …” Jack Bryant grabbed the monster’s collar with one hand and sort of yanked her to her feet with the other. Ellie felt winded.

  “I, eh, didn’t realize you had a … pet.” She eyed the gorilla-like face warily. In turn the dog warned her with a sullen look that he was higher in the family ranking than she could ever hope to be.

  “Is it a problem? He stays outside most of the time, in fact—”

  “He sleeps on my bed sometimes.” Jessie put paid to that particular lie instantly.

  “Jess, go upstairs and finish getting dressed.” He spoke sharply to the little girl, who was wearing a very fetching pink bikini top and nothing else. Instantly her bottom lip trembled.

  “Shall I help?” Ellie offered, and the child nodded, trying to decide whether to cry like a baby or behave like she thought a big girl should. The baby won out and a big tear ran down her face.

  “I’m sorry, honey, I shouldn’t have spoken to you like that.” Jack ruffled her hair and bent down to kiss her head.

  “You’ve been like a bear all weekend and it’s not fair.” Sam appeared and gave him a knowing look. Ellie decided she didn’t want to be part of whatever was going on here. She held out her hand to the younger child, dropped her handbag and straightened her blouse and they headed off upstairs, leaving the other two to talk.

  “So, what are you wearing today?” Ellie asked. “Do they have a uniform in playschool?”

  “No, silly.” Jessie was smiling. “Only in big school. ‘Cept when we’re making paint, then we have to wear a apron.” She was pulling on her worn-out Barbie T-shirt and the matching bikini bottom and had upended most of her drawer looking for her favorite blue jeans.

  “Are you going swimming today?”

  “No.”

  “Then why are you wearing your bikini, darling?”

  “Cause … cause, just in case.”

  “Do you like to swim?”

  “Yep.” The tears were forgotten. “Only we don’t get to go much, only when Aunty Kate has time to bring us and she’s very busy all the day long. But I still wear it cause that way someone might bring me.”

  “Well, let me talk to Dad and see what we can do, OK? But I’m not promising anything.” Jessie had one foot in the jeans and almost fell over as she tried to clap her hands and pull on her trousers at the same time.

  “Have you brushed your teeth?”

  The answer was a display of crooked pearly whites.

  “Let me see, open wide, yes they look spotless. OK, can you comb your hair or would you like me to do it?”

  “Can you do a Barbie ponytail?”

  “I think I could manage.”

  “Great. Dad always gets the scrunchy mixed up with my hair and then it hurts when he pulls.”

  “Well, you get me your favorite one and some slides and I’ll be down in the kitchen, OK?”

  “OK.” Jessie ambled away, happy now.

  “Sorry about that. Not a great start, eh?” Jack was leaning against the counter top sipping a mug of coffee and looking pensive when Ellie arrived in the kitchen.

  “She’s fine. Not a bother.” Ellie rightly sensed that he was very unsure about her and didn’t want to make him feel anymore uncomfortable.

  “How about you?” She wasn’t sure what he meant and her eyebrows formed a question. He gestured toward the table. “Rashers hasn’t put you off?” Ellie looked warily and saw the dog properly for the first time. It had the ugliest, wrinkliest, saddest face she’d ever seen on an animal and she burst out laughing.

  “How on earth did he get a name like Rashers?” She shook her head and looked at him again in amazement.

  “The girls thought he looked like a pig, and they adore Babe. So, pig … bacon … rashers … yeah?”

  “He’s not a dog or even a pig, he’s a donkey.”

  Jack handed her a coffee and sat down, reaching out to stroke the bit that protruded upward from the hammered-out face that had glued itself to the floor as if asking for forgiveness. “Actually, I usually tell people he’s called after that character in Strumpet City, sounds much more intelligent. But in your case I reckon there’s no point in lying about anything. The girls have a nasty habit of telling it like it is.”

  “Couldn’t you have called him Fido or Rufus, even?”

  “Believe me, I tried. The girls wanted Pig or Babe or Rashers and I wanted Rover or Lassie or something equally macho and for a while he answered to anything, which saved face for me in the park. Eventually, he decided he liked Rashers more, probably because I regularly forgot to feed him whereas the girls had to be handcuffed to stop them giving him beggin’ strips—the latest dog treat—bacon-flavored of course.” He grinned at her. “I even offered to compromise but they didn’t like Tyson either.”

  “Tyson?”

  “’Cause he’s a boxer?”

  Ellie nodded. “Can’t say I blame them. That’s a terrible pun, and besides, I’d say there are a million Tysons out there, and I bet each owner thinks they’re so original.”

  “So you like Rashers?”

  “Can’t say I do, no. Wasn’t there any alternative?”

  “Oh yes, there were others up for consideration, but just try shouting ‘come ’ere, P. Diddy’ in the park of a morning and see where it gets you.”

  Ellie spluttered her coffee at the image he conjured up. “They can’t be into pop stars yet, surely.”

  “No, but Sarah, Kate’s teenage daughter is, so they know all the names. I don’t think they even know what a pop star is, but they’re learning fast, that’s all I know. Every day there’s something new at school. It’s exhausting trying to keep up.”

  They chatted on and it helped break the ice until Jessie arrived with her “hair box.”

  Jack pretended to be engrossed in the newspaper as Ellie expertly created a miniature horse’s mane and kept it all in place with the sparkliest clips in the box, but he kept an eye on the two of them and felt happy and sad and jealous at the same time. He realized all they’d missed since their mummy had left. And whatever faults she had, Lorna always made sure the children had the best of everything. They’d always had matching this and designer that. Now he only remembered they needed new things when Kate told him.

  The girls were ready for school just in time and came to kiss their father. “Will you be here when I get back? It’s merely to run through a few things, just so I know your routine and what you expect …” Ellie trailed off.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m just going to jump in the shower.” Ellie nodded and they turned to go. “Have you got your lunch box, Sam?”

  “No, there was nothing in the fridge,” the child replied matter-of-factly and Ellie was immediately sorry she’d asked. Jack’s face displayed a guilty look and it manifested itself as anger.

  “That is not true, young lady, and you know it. There’s ham and cheese and—”

  “They’re all past the sell-by date.” She was a budding nutritionist suddenly. “And the cheese is green and the whole fridge smells and I’m not eating anything out of it.”

  Ellie jumped in once again. This was going to be tougher than she thought.

  “We can pick up something on the way for today.” She nodded encouragingly at them all. “And you, young lady, can help me clean out the fridge later, so you’ll have no excuse tomorrow.” She smiled and herded the two girls outside as fast as she could.

  “Oh Nora, I almost forgot, I’ll get you cov
ered to drive my car from today. I think I have all the details I need on your CV.” He scratched his head as if wondering where the hell that was.

  “Why don’t you just jot down the name of the insurance company and your policy number on a yellow stickie and I’ll look after it as soon as I get a minute,” Ellie offered, but realized that offering was probably making him feel even more useless.

  “No, it’s fine, I’ll do it,” he said brusquely, confirming her suspicion. She could have kicked herself. This was going to be like walking on eggshells. She had to remind herself that this family’s mental health wasn’t her responsibility. Clearly, there was a lot going on under the surface for the three of them. All she had to do was keep out of it.

  Thirteen

  When Ellie returned Jack was smiling. “The insurance company assumed that Nora Simpson was my grandmother,” he told her when they met in the hall. He had showered and changed and smelt of lemon oil. “You were nearly having to produce a doctor’s certificate of mental competency, the way they were talking.”

  “I can imagine. I really hate my name, you know,” she said without any preamble. “And the medical cert might have been difficult. You see, every time I get a twinge I’m convinced that I’ve six months at most to live and I turn up at the surgery and try to persuade my doctor to break it to me gently, so he’s highly suspicious of me.” Jack was amazed at some of the things she came out with, especially as they barely knew each other at all. She was the polar opposite to Lorna. It was going to take some getting used to.

  “Last time, a pain in my gums was cancer of the mouth, as far as I was concerned.”

  “What did he say?” Jack was trying not to look like he was a bit freaked by all this.

  “I’d swallowed a filling in my sleep, apparently. He sent me to the dentist. But I then became convinced that the filling would perforate my bowel, I spent weeks watching my … actually, you don’t really need to know this about me.”

  “On the contrary, it’s fascinating.”

  “Oh believe me, I could bore you for hours. The time before that my big toe hurt. I immediately thought of gout and hot footed it down to the doc for the second time in a week, if you’ll pardon the pun.”

  “What is gout, exactly?”

  “No idea, but I’m almost sure I had at least a threat of it.”

  “Anything else I should know about?”

  “Lots, but you’ll begin to recognize the signs soon enough, when you see me with my head stuck in the Good Health Guide or on my favorite website, which is www.ten-fatal-diseases-and-how-to-avoid-them.com or something similar.”

  “Fascinating. I trust you won’t pass on your, eh, slight neurosis to the children.”

  “Oh no, don’t worry, I’ve absolutely no sympathy for anyone else who’s ill. Broken fingers, legs hanging off, they all get told to offer it up for the holy souls in purgatory. That’s what my mother used to tell us.”

  He was beginning to wonder what exactly he’d let himself in for here but decided to get his sister to do any further investigating. Luckily, the arrival of Mrs. O’Sullivan forced them to change the subject.

  More coffee followed and Jack hoped he wasn’t going to be nabbed by one of them every time he put his head outside his study door. They were making lists at the kitchen table. What was it about women and lists? he wondered.

  “So, Jack, if I look after the girls’ rooms and clothes, do the shopping and organize something to eat for them, then I can help around the house if I’ve any spare time? Would that be OK?” Ellie asked him as he tried to sneak past.

  “Yes, fine.” He looked distracted. “Oh and, I should have mentioned, my study doesn’t need any tidying. In fact, I’d sort of prefer it if you didn’t go in there at all, if that’s OK?”

  “Sure, no problem.” She gave him a strange look.

  “Thank you.” He wasn’t going to explain any further.

  “The Filipino we had for a while tidied his desk once and he was like a bear for a week.” Mrs. O’Sullivan filled Ellie in as soon as Jack departed, coffee cup in hand.

  “Just as well you told me. It’s the sort of thing I do all the time.” The older woman looked puzzled. “You know, convince myself that the other person is only trying to be nice—not giving me too much to do at the start. So then, I’d probably clean his office as a surprise someday.” She smiled and Mrs. O’Sullivan decided she’d better keep an eye on this one or there could be trouble ahead.

  “No, definitely not. Trust me. I once tried to hoover and he nearly had a fit. Nobody else is allowed inside the door. It’s the artistic thing, I think.” She sounded far more knowledgeable than she looked.

  “What sort of books does he write?”

  “Crime, the serious end, I think. My sister-in-law said there was a big article on him in The Times recently. He’s very big in America, I believe. Been on the bestsellers list there five or six times. I keep hoping he’ll give me one to read, I love blood and guts.”

  Ellie was off in her own little world for the rest of the morning as she washed and ironed the girls’ clothes, imagining herself featuring in one of Jack’s stories, a sort of modern-day Cagney or Lacey.

  * * *

  In the afternoon, as soon as she and Jess had collected Sam from school, they all hit the supermarket. She was a sucker for letting them have what they wanted and was nervous about presenting Jack with the bill, so she made her only foolproof recipe for dinner—roast chicken with all the trimmings. It looked great, even if the roast potatoes were a little bit black around the edges and her minted peas gave new meaning to the term mushy.

  “I’ve, eh, left you a plate in the oven. You were on the phone for a long time when I was feeding the girls and I didn’t want to disturb you. I just wasn’t sure if you like to eat with them or not?”

  “Never disturb him when he’s on the phone. He talks for hours and gets really cross if we ask him anything in the middle of one of his chats.” Samantha sounded like his boss. “And he never eats with us, anyway, we always have ours in front of the TV.”

  “That’s not true.” Jack looked at her apologetically. “I try to sit down with them but sometimes my publisher calls from the States, different time zones and all that, you know how it is …” God he hoped he wasn’t going to have to constantly explain himself, or worse still keep apologizing. He’d have to have a word with Sam later.

  “I … eh, spent a fair bit in the supermarket.” It was her turn to look mortified as she handed him a receipt as long as the average toilet roll.

  “That’s fine, thank you.” He didn’t even glance at it. “How much do I owe you?” He was searching for his wallet.

  “Em, two hundred and forty-two euros and sixty cents.”

  His eyes widened. “We needed a lot of basic cleaning products and I did get all the stuff for the girls’ lunches for the week and …” Ellie was pink and waffling.

  “I expect I could have brought them to the Four Seasons every day for that kind of money.”

  “What’s the Four Seasons?” Jess always had a question.

  “It’s a well-known five-star hotel, darling,” her father told her, but he was smiling so Ellie guessed he wasn’t too upset.

  “We got new toothbrushes, and I got a Peter Rabbit bubble bath,” Jessie told him happily.

  “And I got my first face cream.” Samantha was equally jubilant.

  “Are you planning to wear make-up any day soon?” Jack was beginning to wonder if he should limit Ellie’s little shopping expeditions, in order to avoid bankruptcy.

  “I allowed them one treat each, cause it was our first time.” Ellie read his mind. “Don’t worry, I’m quite careful, usually.”

  He didn’t like the sound of that usually, for some reason, but he was too tired to care tonight.

  “I’ll have cash for you first thing in the morning, if that’s OK.” He was rifling through his wallet but a solitary ten-euro note seemed to be the extent of his bounty.

  “
Oh, no problem at all, Mr. Bry … Jack. If it’s OK with you I’ll be off now. I’ve got a girls’ club meeting …” She was embarrassed. She hadn’t meant to say anything.

  “Like the Brownies?” Jessie was all ears.

  “Sort of.” Ellie was backing out the door. “See you all tomorrow, good night.”

  “Night night, God bless was what my mum always said.” It was the first time Sam had mentioned her mother in ages and it gave Jack a bit of a jolt. Sam made it sound like Lorna was dead.

  “G’nite, Nora.” Jess blew her a kiss and Ellie escaped.

  “So, how was the first day?” was all Jack was interested in as soon as she’d gone.

  “OK. She bought us new lunch boxes.” Sam was reserving judgment.

  “I love Nora.” Jess wasn’t.

  Fourteen

  The meeting that night was a short one because it was only a few days since their last weigh-in and besides, everyone was wrecked. They got the scales bit over with quickly and with the exception of Pam, who stayed the same and was greatly relieved because she’d had two pastries at lunchtime, the others had lost between half a pound—Maggie—and one and a half pounds—Toni. Pam was finding it hard to resist the goodies in the reduced section of the chiller cabinet in the supermarket every day. Today it had been those gorgeous frozen éclairs and she’d bought three boxes simply because they were a steal at ninety-nine cents. The problem was they couldn’t be re-frozen so she had until tomorrow to eat or bin twelve of them. Still, the boys had been demolishing them in front of the TV as she left.

  Ellie had lost a pound and was delighted. She regaled them with stories of her first day in the new job, while they tucked into a delicious beef stir-fry with masses of vegetables courtesy of Maggie. No one looked too closely at the label on the jar of Ken Hom black bean sauce that had been tipped in at the last minute. There couldn’t be many calories in beans and garlic, and besides they were all far too busy feeling virtuous as they sipped Evian and planned to go to a spin class later in the week, which might give them a boost before another dreaded weekend on a diet. Toni handed out leaflets as they left entitled “What Your Pooh Says About You”—a fascinating, according to her, study of thirty feces in terms of color, texture and stickiness. In spite of herself Ellie was glued to it as she sipped her herbal tea in bed later.