‘Don’t mind? It’s your flat,’ said Carol. ‘Is this … is this your girlfriend?’
‘Er … yeah. Wanted you to meet her. Mum, this is Angel; Angel, Mum.’
‘Angel?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s a nice name.’
‘Thanks. Most people don’t believe it’s my real name, but it is. It’s not just a modelling name. My mum says she took one look at me and thought, “Angel”, so that’s what I am.’
‘How lovely. Matt was premature. If I’d done the same thing, he’d be called Foetus.’
For such a pretty girl, it was odd that she laughed like a camel.
‘Are you hungry?’ said Carol. ‘That chicken really needs eating.’
Matt had slept with women like Angel many times, possibly even with Angel herself. He had not eaten dinner. Angel had slept with men like Matt many, many times, and she, too, had eaten no dinner. Neither of them had been offered fresh, home-roast chicken for a long while.
The battle between hunger and sexual thwartedness was, in both cases, a no contest. In many ways, this was the perfect outcome. The fun was more in the chase, in the conquest, than in the sex itself, which was often a tense and sweaty anticlimax. Just knowing the other person wanted you was the real goal, more than making them actually go through with it, and they had passed that point. For both of them, the evening was already a victory. To get the glow of triumph, and then be spared the efforts, pitfalls and disappointments of sexual congress by a middle-aged woman appearing from nowhere and offering you a hot meal was, in fact, perfect.
‘Starving,’ said Matt.
‘Me too,’ said Angel, who was perpetually hungry, and who was suddenly as determined to eat that chicken as she was to puke it up again afterwards.
The meat was delicious. The roast potatoes and aubergines accompanying it were stupendous. Matt and Angel gobbled with ravenous awe, barely able to speak as they ate. It reminded Carol of when Matt was sixteen, and feeding him was like shovelling coals into a furnace.
‘So how long have you two been together?’ said Carol.
‘Couple of months.’
Angel was eating with such concentration that she barely noticed the lie.
‘Where did you meet?’
‘A dinner party. At a friend’s house.’
‘That’s nice. How old are you, Angel?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘Eighteen?’ said Matt, hamming up his half-genuine surprise.
‘Next month.’
‘Eighteen next month?’
‘Yeah.’
‘So you’re seventeen,’ said Carol.
‘Only just. I mean, not for long.’
‘That’s exactly half Matt’s age. How neat.’
‘You never said you were seventeen!’ said Matt.
‘You never asked.’
‘You don’t look seventeen. You look twenty. At least.’
‘I’ve looked twenty since I was fourteen.’
‘Don’t say that.’
‘You’ve been together two months, and you don’t even know how old she is?’ said Carol.
‘Er … that was a lie. I was just embarrassed. We met this evening. I haven’t touched her. Honest.’
‘You fingered me in the taxi,’ said Angel.
‘She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Angel, I had no idea you’re seventeen. I think maybe you should go.’ Matt stood, in the hope that Angel would do the same.
‘I haven’t finished my chicken.’
‘All right, well, eat up,’ said Matt. ‘And next time you should be more honest about your age.’
‘What do you mean, next time? You’ll be so lucky.’
‘I meant with other men. It’s just some general advice.’
‘I don’t need your advice, thank you very much, Mr High and Mighty. I’m legal.’
‘Why don’t you just take the chicken with you? I’ll give you a bag.’
‘I don’t want it now, Mr Patronising. I do have some dignity.’
‘I’m glad.’
‘Where’s the bog?’
‘It’s over there,’ said Matt.
Angel stood and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Thank you for the chicken. It was delicious,’ she said to Carol, with a pointed politeness designed, in some obscure way, to put Matt in his place.
Matt strained to think of something to say to his mother while Angel visited the toilet, anything at all that might diminish his embarrassment while also masking the sound of Angel’s vomiting, but nothing came to mind, so he avoided catching her eye and pretended to be absorbed in his food, hoping she’d interpret this as appreciation for her efforts in the kitchen.
‘Do you think I’m fat?’ shouted Angel, as she staggered noisily out of the toilet. She really hadn’t appeared drunk when they left the bar, Matt thought to himself. Nor had she seemed so young. This whole scenario was not going to be easy to explain away.
‘Maybe you should go down and call Angel a cab,’ said Carol. Matt looked at his mother and saw that her face had taken on a waxy pallor he recognised from the very worst flashpoints of his adolescence. There was anger, a noisy, red-faced, curiously exciting place; then, beyond that, you occasionally got to visit this ominously quiet, spookily still zone of genuine dismay. It was like the difference between Las Vegas and the desert beyond it. The waxy face was the give-away: he was now right out there among the cacti, with Joe Pesci driving and a shovel in the trunk.
Matt didn’t feel remotely happy leaving these two women alone together in his flat, but he had no choice. When Carol had that look in her eye, you did what she said and you did it quickly. He rushed down, praying for deliverance in the form of a black cab with an orange halo.
Even ten minutes after Angel had been dispatched, Matt could still think of nothing to say to Carol. He wanted to ask her what she’d talked about with Angel in his absence, but that didn’t seem like a dignified question. It had certainly been ominous that Angel’s last words to him before she drove away were, ‘I don’t really want to cut your dick off. I’m not that kind of a girl.’
It was Carol who eventually broke the silence. ‘I think I’ll turn in,’ she said.
‘Good idea,’ said Matt. ‘I’ll clear up.’
This was an offer he had never before made to his mother. They were both, however, a little too frazzled to appreciate the breakthrough.
at a stroke, he was twelve
The evening after the Angel debacle, Matt came straight home from work for a quiet evening in with his mother. He was probably twelve years old the last time he did anything even vaguely similar, but these were exceptional circumstances. He had to explain himself.
He didn’t really have any clear idea how low he might have sunk in his mother’s estimation, but he knew that whatever she thought of him now was humiliatingly damning. A belligerent voice in the back of his mind still occasionally squawked out that he was too old to be frightened of his mother – that a real man isn’t swayed from his chosen course in life by what other people think of him – but he knew he was doing the right thing in ignoring it.
As he walked through the front door of his flat, he immediately noticed the smell: a very particular lamb stew that instantly took him back twenty-five years to long suburban Sundays of Monopoly and Swingball, of paddling pools and daisy chains and home-made dens and pillow fights, of two-a-side football and cricket with a tennis ball, of tricycles in the garden and go-carts on the pavement. This was the smell of play, of comfort, of infinite leisure, of everything being right with the world. And only one woman could produce it.
‘Good day at work?’ said Carol, wiping her hands on a tea towel, with a mannerism that reminded him of how she used to wipe her hands on her apron. As far as he knew, his kitchen didn’t contain an apron.
‘Not bad. Same old, same old.’ Where had that phrase come from? Was that what his dad used to say?
‘Are you hungry?’
It was a good tw
o hours earlier than Matt usually ate, but the smell of the stew had an odd effect on him. ‘Starving,’ he said.
‘Or would you like a gin and tonic first? I bought some this afternoon.’
Gin and tonic? This was like being in a hotel. Was there anything better in life than people offering you things you didn’t even know you wanted until you heard the suggestion? ‘That would be amazing,’ he said, throwing himself on to the sofa like a felled tree.
The drink came, with ice and lime. Not even lemon. Lime.
‘Cheers,’ said Carol.
‘Cheers.’
The gin and tonic slipped down oh so easily. Why was it men weren’t supposed to drink this? How could anything this good possibly be forbidden? Perhaps there was a feature in it. He could commission something on ‘The Drinks You’re Too Cool to Order’. No, ‘Why Do Girls Get the Best Drinks?’ would make for a better photo shoot.
‘This is good,’ he said.
‘I hope it’s not too strong.’
‘I think I can handle it.’
There didn’t seem to be any discernible frost in the air. However low he’d sunk, his mother had apparently not yet written him off. Things would have to get worse before she gave up on him.
A week ago, the idea of his mother giving up on him – leaving him alone and never phoning him – would have sounded rather pleasant. Something must have changed in the course of her visit, because he now felt hugely relieved that he still had a chance to explain himself to her. He didn’t know why, but he wanted her forgiveness. Failing that, at the very least, he wanted a chance to show her that he was not as bad a person as he might have appeared since her arrival. With a little effort, he felt sure he could redeem himself in the remaining days before she left.
As they sat down to eat, he said, ‘I’m sorry about last night.’ He should have brought her some flowers. That might have helped, but it was too late now. Besides, now he looked, the flat was already full of the flowers his mother had bought, artfully arranged in a selection of Matt’s beer glasses.
‘Why are you sorry?’ said Carol.
For a moment, Matt was thrown. ‘What do you mean? I’m just sorry. It was embarrassing.’
‘For who?’
‘Well, for me. And you.’
‘I wasn’t embarrassed,’ said Carol. ‘I just felt sorry for you.’
‘For me? Or for her?’
‘For both of you.’
‘It was a freak thing, I promise. That’s never happened to me before.’
‘I’m not interested,’ snapped Carol, suddenly averting her eyes from Matt and eating with her gaze fixed on her plate.
‘What?’
‘If you’re going to lie, I’m not interested in talking to you. You can eat in the kitchen if that’s how you’re going to behave.’
Yet again, at a stroke, he was twelve. How did she do this to him?
‘I’m not lying.’
Carol looked up from her food and fixed her son with an angry glare. ‘Matt, I’ve read your magazine.’
‘So?’
‘So I know the truth about you.’
‘What’s the magazine got to do with that girl being underage? Not underage. She wasn’t underage. I just mean young. Younger than I thought she was.’ Matt took a large swig of gin and tonic. The glass felt slippery in his hands.
‘You can’t see the connection?’
‘She’s never modelled for the magazine.’
‘But you’re the editor?’
‘Features editor.’
‘So you’re important. You have some say in the content.’
‘Of course. A lot of say. I have to come up with the ideas.’
‘So it reflects your tastes.’
‘You can’t judge me on that magazine. It’s my job to tailor it to a given readership. Which is young men. And young men like young girls.’
‘Right, so they like young girls and you don’t?’
‘Yeah. More or less.’
‘And last night was just a one-off coincidence.’
‘Pretty much.’
Carol stared at him with strange, unsettling intensity. Something powerful, either rage or disappointment, seemed to be boiling under the surface of her skin.
‘Why are you looking at me like that? What is it?’
Carol said nothing.
‘It’s true! I swear.’
She still didn’t speak, just turned up the stare.
‘I’m not going to the kitchen. Mum, I’m not going to the kitchen. I’m too old for that.’
‘Well, I’ll go, then. I’m not interested in your lies.’
‘Mum, sit down! I’m not lying!’
‘I’m just very upset. Upset and angry.’
‘About what? That girl?’
‘About you, Matt. About how you’ve turned out.’
‘Me? How have I turned out?’
She lunged at the BALLS! on the coffee table, picked it up by one corner as if it was a greasy rag, and waved it in his face. ‘Like this, Matt! Like this!’
For an instant, as he grabbed the magazine and chucked it on the floor, he thought she might be about to cry.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘You know, Matt. Don’t pretend you don’t understand.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘I brought you up, Matt. I know who you are. Or who you were. The first fifteen years of your life is in there, somewhere. I know it is. You can’t have forgotten it all.’
‘Of course I haven’t.’
‘Then you understand me. You know what I mean. You’re decent, Matt. I know you are. At heart. It’s how I made you. You’re decent.’
Then, suddenly, she was crying. Standing there, looming above him, weeping.
He stared, horrified. After a while, he stood and tried to hug her. At first, her hands stayed over her face, her stiff elbows fending him off, but gradually her body began to yield, and he found himself holding her, for the first time in many, many years, while her body shook with tears.
When she quietened down, he sat her on his La-Z-Boy and gave her a fresh gin. More in order to stay out of her way than out of any genuine desire to help, he loaded the dishwasher and tidied away the remains of the stew. He even washed up the pan, delaying the moment when he’d have to look his mother in the eye.
He did understand what she meant. In fact, he’d always known this would be her reaction to the magazine, which was why he had never shown her a copy. The surprise was not that she thought it, but that she’d said it. As he stood there, slowly rinsing the saucepan, a bizarre thought floated into his head and refused to leave. He had been brought up one way, and now he was living another way. Morally – and this was not a frame of reference he often found himself calling upon – the life he had created for himself was a betrayal of the principles his mother and father tried to teach him.
As a rule, Matt was no more interested in morals than he was in mortgage rates, but the sight of Carol standing in his living room, weeping over his lack of decency – whatever that meant – unsettled him. He hadn’t been allowed just to watch, either. He’d had to hug her. And because of her tears, he hadn’t had the chance to argue back.
He didn’t like the way she’d been able to say these things without allowing him any response. He resented being forced to stew over her criticisms on his own, without the opportunity to fight his corner. And yet, in the absence of the argument an accusation like this would normally cause, Matt was surprised to find himself feeling the beginnings of a hint of a suggestion in the back of his mind that maybe, just maybe, she had a point.
A new thought isn’t like a new possession. It’s not something you go out and get. It’s not something you don’t have, then suddenly you do have. A new thought, more often than not, is like opening a drawer you haven’t looked in for a while and finding something you thought you’d lost. It was always there, it was always yours, you just become freshly aware of it.
The idea that Matt�
��s job was somehow wrong, perhaps even a little sordid, had been sitting in an unopened drawer for a long, long time. Now, this week, the drawer was beginning to be prised open. He was fighting it. He was doing everything he could to keep it shut. But he could no longer deny to himself that he knew where the drawer was and what was in it.
He walked back to the sofa and slumped down. He couldn’t look at her. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that she wasn’t looking at him.
Eventually, after the light in the flat had shifted from dusk to orange-grey street-lit semi-darkness, he said, ‘Well, what do you want me to do about it?’
‘I just want you to be happy. I want you to be true to yourself.’
He stood and closed the blinds.
‘I have to make a living. Your career takes you where it takes you.’
‘Or where you take it.’
‘It’s not that easy.’
After a long silence, she added, ‘It would just be so sad if, when I died, you were still living like this.’
His first instinct was to bark back at her, ‘Like what?’ The words almost came out, but he stopped himself. He knew what she meant.
‘You’re not going to die,’ he said.
She ignored him.
Helen and Paul
the unexploded bomb
‘Pop in?’ said Paul.
‘Yes. Are you pleased to see me?’
‘Er … yes, but I … wasn’t expecting you.’
‘Of course you weren’t.’
Paul stared from his mother to Andre and back again. They had been talking. Something, clearly, had passed between them that had given away more about Paul and Andre’s relationship than Helen was supposed to know. Andre would not have greeted him with a kiss unless he thought there was nothing to hide. Helen must have tricked him. As ever with his mother, nothing was straightforward. It really was astonishing how this old, harmless-looking woman could exhaust and exasperate him with such effortless ease.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were coming?’ said Paul. ‘How long have you been here?’
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