Life After Lunch

by Sarah Harrison

  Glyn and Becca were in the sitting-room drinking tea. Glyn was on the sofa and Becca was sitting sideways in the armchair with her legs draped over the arm. She’d discarded the Red Indian boots. Her toenails were an immaculate carmine but her heels were grubby. She was smoking.

  She was also in high good humour.

  ‘Christ, take it easy!’ she said, as the children cast themselves upon her. They worshipped her, and she did almost nothing to deserve it. ‘ Want some tea?’ she asked me.

  ‘No thanks, we’ve come from Planet Burger.’

  ‘You are good, thanks ever so much.’

  I sat down next to Glyn, and we kissed. He aimed for my mouth but I allowed him my cheek. I was rather out of sorts. Sinead climbed on to his knee and began fingering the scattering of badges on the lapel of his bomber jacket. Amos ran out into the back garden. Through the glass door I saw him clamber wincemakingly over the chicken wire into next door’s patch for some serious socializing.

  ‘So what happened with the car?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, it’s not as bad as it looks,’ said Becca airily, as well she might. She bought her own petrol, but Glyn paid for tax, insurance and repairs.

  ‘It looked terrible,’ I told Glyn.

  ‘It must have been very nasty,’ he said. ‘It shakes you up, that sort of thing.’

  I thought of the ashen-faced driver of the Granada. ‘It does, I know. So were Bunker’s able to quote you a price?’

  ‘Not really.’ I could tell by her face that they had but she hadn’t yet worked out a line on it.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Glyn. ‘The insurance company will cough. Premium’ll go up, but what the hell, it’s only money. Mum and I are just pleased no one was hurt.’

  There he went, my husband, saving me from myself again. I was grateful for the better light he cast on me, but a little saddened by it too. I wished I had been the one to say that. Then I remembered that of course I had, earlier in the day when Becca first rang me up – but she had been too angry then to remember, and all she would retain of this conversation would be my mention of the cost and her father’s dismissal of it …

  ‘I hope it won’t be too long,’ sighed Becca. ‘ I’m lost without my wheels.’

  I knew exactly what Glyn would say, and he did. ‘Don’t worry, Bex. I’m sure we can sort something out.’

  Sinead climbed on to his knee and pressed her hands into his, bouncing up and down flirtatiously.

  ‘That’s my girl,’ remarked Becca indulgently. ‘She loves her men, does my Sinead.’

  Speaking of which, I thought. ‘How are things between you and Liam at the moment?’ I asked, watching Sinead with a smile to show of how little consequence it was.

  ‘Don’t try your luck. Mum. There are no ‘‘things’’ between Liam and me.’

  ‘There’s Sinead.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ Becca’s mood was going into free-fall. She shied her cigarette into a plant-pot and scrabbled madly for another in her ‘Le Sac’, her face hard and set.

  ‘Best not to discuss it just now anyway …’ Glyn clapped Sinead’s hands together.

  ‘It has to be discussed some time,’ I persisted crazily.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Glyn.

  Becca got up and tried to reclaim her daughter, who immediately twisted away and ran into the garden. She flopped down again with her legs crossed, one foot tapping. There was a moment’s hateful awkwardness for which I felt entirely responsible.

  ‘I’d better get moving,’ said Glyn. ‘I’ve got someone coming round.’

  ‘Anyone I’d know?’ I asked, latching on to the change of subject.

  ‘No, but a year from now you will. Or Josh will. Terrific sound and a nice, really level-headed bunch of guys.’

  ‘Sounds promising.’ When Glyn used phrases like ‘bunch of guys’ I felt about a hundred. Such phrases seemed to spring quite naturally and unaffectedly to his lips.

  Without looking in our direction Becca asked; ‘They’re local then, are they?’

  ‘No, Watford. Not London, though, which is good.’

  ‘What are they called?’

  ‘Human Condition. Remember – you heard it first here.’

  ‘No, I’ve heard them – they were on at the Black Hole at New Year. The lead’s called Spriggs or something?’

  ‘Griggs.’ Glyn’s face lit up with enthusiasm. ‘ So what did you think, Bex?’

  Becca inhaled deeply, our pop culture consultant. ‘Not bad. Bit bland, bit take-home-to-mother – but Griggs has a nice little bum.’

  Glyn laughed gleefully, while I managed a faint smile. I could never quite come to terms with Becca’s blatantly consumeristic approach to the opposite sex.

  ‘They’re really, really provincial English as well,’ added Becca. ‘A bit like Madness.’

  ‘Yes!’ Glyn raised a triumphant fist. ‘Thank you, Bex! You have just described the band of my dreams.’

  ‘Fine.’ Becca shrugged and glanced over her shoulder, ostensibly to check on the kids – but I knew her mood had changed for the better again.

  We got up. Becca remained seated. Glyn went over and patted her cheek, something I’d never have dared to do.

  ‘What’s that for?’

  ‘For vindicating my judgement.’

  ‘Any time, Grandpa.’

  ‘See you back at the ranch,’ said Glyn to me.

  When the front door had – almost – closed, I said, ‘Bye then, darling. Will you be okay?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘Why shouldn’t I be?’

  It was no good. I’d been out of order and would have to do my time and take my punishment like a man. I went to the garden door and put my head out to say goodbye to the children, but they were playing on the other side of the fence and were quite oblivious to my calls and waves.

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ said Becca from her chair.

  ‘Oh well, give them my love when they come back.’

  ‘I’ll do that.’

  It occurred to me to wonder whether there were any adults in the adjoining house but I decided now was not the moment to raise these doubts. Whatever her shortcomings, Becca was doing something right, because Amos and Sinead were as well adjusted, attractive and affectionate a pair as any grandparent could wish. And I had nearly mislaid them … I left, quickly and quietly, before I could stir up any more hostility.

  I picked up a few things at Tesco’s on the way back and came upon Verity and a couple of others loading their haul into the back of a camper-van. Verity’s waiflike air was misleading. She looked willowy but was actually wiry, and as strong as an ox. Large boxes containing everything from baked beans to bog paper flew from hand to hand and into the van’s interior at lightning speed. The store was still open but relatively quiet in the late afternoon, awaiting the rush of singles and young working couples between six and eight. I didn’t tell her about Becca’s accident – it would genuinely have ruined her day.

  ‘Want a lift home?’ I asked.

  ‘Oh, no thanks,’ said Verity, as though sorry to disappoint me. ‘We’re staying on till closing time.’

  ‘It looks as though you’ve done well.’

  ‘People are good,’ said Verity. Her face shone with appreciation. ‘They’re really kind. They want to give. We haven’t heard a cross word all day – it’s been brilliant, hasn’t it, Seth?’

  Seth confirmed that it had been magic. Someone I might have described as an elderly body (until I realized she was about my age), stoutish and dressed in a sludge-green tracksuit, appeared at the door of the van.

  ‘That it for now?’

  ‘For now!’ said Verity. ‘Shona, this is my Mum.’

  ‘Hallo there!’ beamed Shona. ‘Brought something for us?’

  I was embarrassed by this oversight. ‘I’m awfully sorry, I haven’t—’

  ‘No worries! Another time!’ Shona hopped out, closed the doors, climbed into the driver’s seat and was off, barrelling over the slee
ping policemen with a brisk rattle.

  Verity gave me her calm, generous smile. ‘ See you later, Mum.’

  ‘What time will you be back?’

  ‘I don’t know. We’ve got to get another load round to the centre when the store closes, and then I might go for a drink.’

  ‘Okay.’

  As I turned out of the car park I switched on the radio. Out poured the honey-and-grits of Nat King Cole, with ‘When I Fall in Love’. By the time I was on the main road there were tears trickling down my cheeks. I opened the glove compartment to grab a Kleenex and there among the broken sunglasses and out of date AA manuals was the usual small polythene bag full of what looked like dried herbs.

  At Alderswick Avenue the house had lost its earlier tranquil air. Glyn was closeted in the office, presumably with Griggs of Human Condition. Josh was lying on the sofa watching children’s television and drinking orange juice out of a carton. It had got past the point where I asked him about schoolwork. He was terrifyingly clever and a law unto himself, as his teachers pointed out to us with a stern, reproachful air (as though there were a thing we could do about it). Glyn’s response was always to express unqualified delight and suggest that Josh would in that case in all probability make and lose several fortunes before his thirtieth birthday.

  ‘All right?’ I asked. Josh raised a hand. I advanced to the end of the sofa and stood looking down at him.

  ‘Something I can do for you?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, as a matter of fact. You can stop leaving dope in my car.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘It’s illegal. Josh. And you’ve only just got your licence.’

  ‘Jesus H!’ He sat up and zapped the programme, using the remote control like a six-gun. ‘That’s rich coming from you, I bet you two were sprinkling it on your cornflakes in the old days. I’ll move it, okay?’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Seamlessly, and in the same belligerent tone, he added, ‘By the way, Collins wants to talk to you or Dad some time.’

  ‘Does he? What about?’ David Collins was the sixth form college Head of English, a subject in which Josh was expected to get either a starred A or a stiff reprimand from the examining board.

  ‘Usual old crap – he doesn’t like my coursework essay.’

  ‘Oh dear … Josh!’

  ‘Don’t panic, you’re as bad as he is. It’s on the kitchen table. Read it yourself. Who the fuck cares what Collins thinks anyway? He’s a trainspotter.’

  I went into the kitchen and picked up the sheets of lined paper covered with Josh’s jagged, forward-leaning handwriting.

  The title, springing off the top page in heavy capitals, declared with unmistakable braggadocio: ‘ THE PUDENDA IMAGERY IN GRIMM’.

  Chapter Seven

  On a free day not long after Becca’s accident, I drove into London to meet my parents for lunch. I always told myself that I was indulging them, carrying out a not very onerous filial duty by allowing them to stand me a three-course meal every few weeks, but to be honest, the pleasure was all mine. Even after more than half a century of marriage my parents retained an aura of debonair romance. They didn’t have to try; it was there, effortlessly, even in their mild bickering – the soft sensual gleam of what I could only call true love.

  It was their gift, to themselves, and to Glyn and me. It was what I aspired to.

  Susan often interrogated me concerning the mysteries of married sex.

  ‘You don’t have to answer this, but how often do you and Glyn do it?’

  Obviously the answer to this question had varied over the years, so I tended to sidestep it. ‘ Often enough. MYOB.’

  ‘MYOB!’ She squeaked with laughter. ‘There speaks an unreconstructed Edelrat!’

  One thing, we could always laugh. We both knew that she was importunate and that I was evasive. We recognized that there were great chasms of difference between us. But we were connected by such a genuine mutual fondness and admiration that her thrusts and my parries were a game, not intended to inflict real injury and only very rarely doing so.

  That was how she got away with her infidelity number.

  ‘Can you honestly look me in the eye, Laura, and say you’ve never been unfaithful? In all this time?’

  ‘No, I never have.’

  ‘Why is that? Lack of opportunity, lack of motive or just lack of energy?’ I’ve never wanted to.’

  ‘But Glyn has, of course.’

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘You mean you have no evidence, but of course he has. Men simply aren’t monogamous.’

  ‘I believe he is,’ I said. I did believe it, but Susan’s worldly generalizations still had the power to shake me.

  ‘Do you want to know what I believe?’ she asked rhetorically, lighting up. ‘I believe he loves you. I believe he loves your kids. I believe he loves marriage. But I also believe he’ll have had at least one fling. In fact I’d be prepared to bet on it.’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Have you ever asked him?’

  ‘No. I’ve never had any reason to.’

  ‘I mean, asked him purely as point of information. In the interests of that culture of openness you’re always on about.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then you should. I bet I’m right. You forget,’ she added, radiating mischief, ‘I’ve been the other woman too often not to know.’

  My parents preferred to eat in hotels – or at a pinch department stores – rather than restaurants. They liked the leisureliness, and the space to sit in comfort. At midday (they were going to a matinee) I found them in the luxurious, sugar-almond lounge of the Clarendon, well into their second drink.

  Their chosen afternoon’s entertainment was a much-praised tap extravaganza, one of those shows with no plot which is simply a chance for the whole cast to display their unnatural energy levels. The audience on a Wednesday afternoon in May would be mainly composed of tourists in trainers and shoppers on return tickets, but my parents were of a generation who looked smart – I should say smarter than usual – when they came up to Town. They looked on the theatre, like church, as a place where a good turnout denoted an appropriate measure of respect. My mother did in fact own some jeans (Gloria Vanderbilt, impeccably dry-cleaned with a crease down the front), and some spotless Timberlands which she wore for walking the dog in the fields, but she would never have worn either to attend a show.

  Today she was softly elegant in a camel suit which looked Jaeger but was probably M&S, a blond cashmere polo-neck and tan courts. The effect, with her hair and colouring, was of honey and cream. Someone of my generation would have sharpened this look with huge gilt-and-pearl studs and heavy gold chains at the throat and wrists, but my mother wore only the tiniest and most discreet glint of earring. She made up for this in the ring department. She had big, long-fingered hands always, in spite of ceaseless gardening, immaculately manicured, and wore three on the fourth finger of her left hand and a knuckle-duster emerald on her right. My father was in an immaculate grey suit and his MCC tie.

  He stood up as I approached. ‘Laura – how nice. Where do you want to park yourself …?’

  ‘Mm,’ said my mother as I kissed her. ‘ Lovely.’

  ‘What’s it to be?’ asked my father. In spite of the size of the room a waiter had, as always, instantly materialized.

  ‘A g and t?’

  ‘A gin and tonic, the same again for us, and we might as well have the menu if you please.’

  The waiter sped away. I was sure my parents were the sort of patrons who made him happy in his work.

  I felt the same. They did me good. ‘How are you both?’ I asked. ‘You’re looking marvellous.’

  ‘Thank you, darling,’ said my mother. ‘My hip’s playing up, but I don’t admit to it.’

  ‘Bloody but unbowed,’ said my father. ‘Shall we enjoy this thing, do you think?’

  ‘Oh, I’m sure you will. Everyone says it’s fantastic.’

  ‘The dancing these da
ys is quite out of this world.’ My mother rewarded the waiter with a little smile of gratitude as he brought our drinks and dishes of olives and rice crackers. ‘Even what you see on the television makes the sort of thing we used to do look absolutely clodhopping. I’m expecting a real treat.’

  ‘I just hope they keep the sound levels a little below that of the Battle of the Atlantic,’ said my father, but quite equably.

  ‘You know perfectly well they won’t,’ I said. ‘It will be loud.’

  ‘I never thought I’d say this but I’m beginning to get used to it,’ remarked my mother, removing the swizzle from her Bloody Mary and laying it in the ashtray.

  ‘You’re fortunate enough to be going a bit deaf, darling.’ My father tapped his pocket. ‘Anyway, I come prepared. I have my ear plugs.’

  My mother looked at me with the enraptured expression which accompanied a determined change of subject.

  ‘We did so enjoy your party,’ she said. ‘It was absolutely super. We were only sorry we had to leave when we did.’

  ‘I’m glad,’ I said.

  ‘What time did everyone stay till, in the end?’

  ‘Oh … I think we poured the last ones out at about midnight.’

  ‘Midnight!’ My mother was enchanted, this was exactly the sort of talk she most enjoyed. ‘ Lunch until midnight – they must have had fun!’

  ‘I think we all did.’

  ‘We liked the fiddle-player,’ said my father. ‘Was that Glyn’s idea?’

  ‘No, actually, he was a present from a friend.’

  ‘He didn’t look terribly jolly but he could certainly play.’

  ‘It was Susan Upchurch who organized it. She couldn’t come herself so she sent him.’

  ‘Do I know her?’ asked my father, looking at me and then at my mother.

  ‘Yes – well, I certainly do,’ said my mother, ‘she was at QE with you, wasn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right. And at our wedding.’ I turned to my father. ‘She was the one who arrived just as we were about to walk up the aisle.’

  ‘Oh yes, I do harbour a vague recollection – skinny in loud checks.’

  My mother raised her eyebrows. ‘I often wonder, Peter,’ she said, ‘how you used to describe me to your friends.’