Behaving Like Adults

by Anna Maxted

  Chapter 14

  AS IS NORMAL after an argument between friends, we were all simperingly sweet to each other for a good few days. Claw insisted on organising my birthday dinner. I was thirty but I didn’t want a fuss. Or rather, I was thirty and I didn’t want a fuss. But my parents were coming down for it, which meant I couldn’t cancel. It’s egotistical, summoning friends to a restaurant in your honour, then forcing them to pay for the alcoholic excesses of others. There’s always a few who don’t drink and there’s always a few who drink till they’re still and green and yet they never offer to cough up extra. They’re always too busy coughing up onto the pavement.

  Ah well. I’d do what I usually did and pay for everyone’s drinks. I find it cuts down on resentment. Costs me the price of a Gucci bag but then, I don’t buy Gucci bags, and I’m saved from the hell of imagining my dearest friends stamping home muttering, ‘A hundred quid for one glass of paint stripper, and I didn’t have a starter . . .’ I wondered if Nick would show. Like he’d dare. With Elisabeth! What a sly, smug . . . But I couldn’t blame her. She’d just gone to the Girl Meets Boy party and met a guy. Why should he tell her who he’d been engaged to, once? It was irrelevant.

  I thought this, but I had a hard time believing it.

  All the same, I let myself fantasise, about Nick’s family and birthdays. One thing about his clan – they’re always doing things, and in a great pack, too. Nick doesn’t have brothers or sisters but he has about a million cousins and uncles and aunts and they’re all on fabulous jet-setting terms and they meet up on every occasion to go for clifftop walks and picnics on the beach and sailing excursions – Nick’s father in his panama hat – and surfs and Bloody Marys and swims and card games and drinking games – drinking games! My parents have half a glass of sherry and think themselves lush!

  On my twenty-sixth birthday, we went to the Hampshire cottage and met up with a great tribe of them. There was a celebratory dinner and Nick’s parents got in caterers – friends of friends. (Everyone is a friend or a friend of a friend. If they go to see a play, a friend will be starring in it. If they go to a restaurant, a friend will be head chef. If they go to Mauritius, a friend will own the villa.) I sat next to a red-faced, white-haired army commander without whose leadership, I suspect, Britain might well have become an extension of Germany. On my other side, sat a Lord Chief Justice. He drank till he was purple (he was past the green stage) but was very useful re the correct use of cutlery.

  I don’t mean to gripe, but I don’t know anyone. Apart from Rachel. I have no connections, no friends of friends. My relatives are decent people, but ordinary with a capital Oh. My mother’s great boast is that she once stood in the same fish queue as Norman Wisdom. (He bought halibut.) And my father never tires of telling the tale of when he glanced out of his office window and saw Tim Brooke-Taylor driving past in a Volkswagen. As for holiday homes, my parents own a caravan. Sorry, recreational vehicle. Admittedly, this was ever so exciting when I was four. I delayed telling Nick about Mum and Dad’s ownership of a Bedford Autosleeper when we got stuck behind a motor-home on the M5 and he cried, ‘Look at those fools dragging along their stinky mobile toilet!’

  Of course, he was a sweetheart when I told him the truth. I waited until we’d overtaken ‘the fools’ and their ‘mobile toilet’, then I said, ‘Did I tell you my parents are members of the British Caravanning Club?’ Nick didn’t blink. It was impossible to embarrass him, he was too well bred. He replied, ‘I love your parents, Hol. They’re two of the most pure-hearted people I’ve ever met.’ It was a lovely thing to say, I was stunned. ‘Thank you,’ I said. Then I told him about their dream, to own a Peugeot Pilote A Class (approx ten grand, second-hand).

  For a while, they’d fantasised about graduating to a Margrove Freeway Demountable on a Nissan Diesel Pickup – a hideous pairing of half a caravan and half a truck, valued at approximately four thousand pounds and containing something entitled a porta potti. I think you could detach the Demountable and add a tent, but it was so fearsomely ugly that Issy convinced them not to make the purchase. The Pilote was a good few rungs up the caravanning ladder. It looked like a lorry, but, as my mother told me in hushed tones, ‘it’s four berth, and the model we’re looking at has a removeable stereo, blow air central heating, an oven, hob, grill, microwave, a new three-way fridge freezer, a shower, a bike rack, a sun canopy and’ – she’d paused in awe – ‘an electric flushing marine toilet! Can you imagine the luxury!’

  I couldn’t. Anyway, it turned out to be too expensive. Secretly I was glad. They were knocking on sixty. Why couldn’t they treat themselves to a gorgeous hotel in Barbados on the edge of a blue lagoon? Why did they insist on parking their rusty mobile toilet in a muddy field in freezing Norfolk, eating tinned sausages, braving the lashing rain and scurrying into the woods to wipe their bottoms on leaves each time the loo became blocked which it frequently did? The Portugal experience had never been repeated; it had seemed ‘too extravagant’. I hated when they said that. It was like a needle in my heart.

  It was hard for me – and my sisters – to accept that our parents preferred caravanning and camping to a gorgeous hotel. They found the whole business thrilling. The closest my dad came to gossip was when he revealed that a fellow BCC member knew someone who knew someone who owned a Holiday Rambler. I didn’t see the significance until my father found me a photo of an ill-advised cross between an ambulance and a coach (it reminded me of a dog I once saw, the result of a liaison between a basset hound and a red setter). Dad explained that this monster, brand new, cost £165,000. Good lord! You could buy an Aston Martin for that and have change left over for a Filet O’ Fish!

  ‘Hol,’ said Claudia, breaking into my thoughts. Visions of Nick and his loud, unwieldy family vanished and I was back in the office on a dreary Monday morning after another quiet weekend.

  ‘Hol,’ Claudia repeated. ‘The restaurant’s booked, I thought you’d like to know. And also, Issy’s coming in for the meeting at 3 p.m. about tomorrow’s Date Night. Is that alright? I know you’re out at lunchtime for your self-defence, God, I should really come with you, but I’m too lazy. I just rely on the pepper spray I smuggled back from New York.’

  ‘That’s illegal over here, isn’t it?’ I said.

  Claudia grinned, ‘Oh dear. Oh, and did I say, Mum and Dad are hoping to stay with you, if that’s okay. I suggested they spoil themselves and get a suite in the Charlotte Street Hotel, well, because I’d like to stay there, but of course they wouldn’t hear of it. Mad, they can afford it now, what with Granny G popping it. Anyway, they don’t want to be a burden, blah blah, but they’re so looking forward to seeing us all, yada yada yada, and not to go to any trouble. I thought you’d be fine with it. I mean, you’ve got room now. Er. Sorry.’

  I smiled. ‘No prob.’

  I realised that my parents’ financial situation had changed, dramatically, what with Granny G popping it – excuse the disrespect, but my mother’s mother was not our favourite, thanks to her open dislike of my father (he was working class, grew up on a council estate and was therefore not good enough) and Claudia refused to pretend an affection purely because Old Miseryguts was now dead. She’d been a terrifying grandmother, a sour old woman who liked to frighten children, who was forever warning you that if you swallowed an apple pip a tree would grow inside you, if you picked dandelions you’d wet the bed, if you made a face the wind would change . . . she’d scared the life out of me.

  But now I realised, thanks to her, if our parents wanted to, they could purchase the Peugeot Pilote A Class without a second thought. Or even the Holiday Rambler. Granny G was a very rich woman who – despite her family owning half the pig farms in Wiltshire – didn’t believe in spending money and would send my mother to bed with no supper if she used more than two sheets of toilet paper per bathroom visit. (I told this to Nick, and his response, predictably, was, ‘But what if she had diarrhoea?’)

  I glanced at the clock. Ten to one! I’d be late
for Manjit. ‘See you later,’ I said to Claw and Nige as I sped out the door. Neither one of them had seemed surprised on discovering that I’d started self-defence and I knew it was because they thought I was doing it to keep up with Nick’s activities. The cynicism of some people!

  ‘So,’ I said, after kissing Manjit hello. ‘How did Elephant Man’s date go with Elisabeth?’

  Manjit giggled. ‘Not bad as it happens. She’s not bad-looking is she? I mean,’ he corrected, ‘not as nice you, Hol. She’s a . . . a bit little for my tastes. I’m not keen on little people. Kylie Minogue and all that. They freak me out.’

  I smiled stiffly. ‘I don’t mind little. Thin worries me. Thin people, thin cats. It’s the reason I can’t go to Greece any more, too many thin cats. So . . . how do you know it wasn’t bad?’

  ‘Don’t ever go to China, Holly. Well, he got in at 4 a.m. didn’t he? Set off the alarm. Bo was not happy. She had a load of work on the next day.’

  ‘Really?’ Four in the morning! ‘Did you actually ask him how it went?’ I added – I couldn’t help myself.

  ‘I asked if she put out’ – Manjit blushed – ‘only because it’s expected, you know, Hol, not because I was being, um, chauvinistic.’

  ‘Of course not, Manjit, you’re the perfect gentleman. And what did he say?’

  ‘Um. He said, “Has Bo got any zinc supplements, I think I depleted my stocks.”’

  ‘That’s disgusting.’

  Disgusting! I repeated in my head. What a baby. I slept with that, that thing, and so Nick has to go out and equal the odds! Pathetic. And as for Elisabeth. She, the ‘butter wouldn’t melt’ vestal virgin, who responded to our cheeky questions describe your ideal fling and describe your ideal shag with the fairly snitty ‘Don’t do flings, don’t do shags’. Well, I bet she was rubbish in bed. The sort of woman who gives a man a blow-job on his birthday to get a ring on her finger, then never again. And has to think of tiaras and the Harrods bridal department all the while to stop herself gagging, and wash out her mouth with Listerine afterwards.

  I thought these particularly evil thoughts, then felt ashamed. And so what if Elisabeth didn’t like giving blow-jobs? Not that I had a shred of evidence. It’s not a rational pastime, is it? Listen to me, I was as bad as a fifteen-year-old boy, calling a girl frigid for refusing to sleep with him. I’m not like that. I’ve always thought a person’s leniency towards others is a direct indicator of their own happiness. Those who judge harshly the behaviour and choices of their friends are dissatisfied with their lives. It’s obvious. So what did that make me?

  ‘So, what are we doing this week?’ I said, brightly.

  ‘Apart from nattering? I thought we’d go over last week’s stuff, refresh your memory. And I’d teach you what to do if someone grabs your wrist. Now, did I tell you about looking your attacker in the face?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Right, well don’t. If you look your attacker in the face, you can’t see what he’s doing with his arms and legs. And he can make evil faces at you, try and psyche you out, which you don’t need. If you look at his chest, then you can see what he’s doing with all his limbs, yeah? And it’s harder for him to headbutt you. Got it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Good. That was before I forgot. Now. If someone grabs your wrist, the bet is, they’ll use the opposite hand to grab your wrist. So left hand, to grab your right wrist and vice versa, yeah? So what you got to do is you twist your palm round and up on the inside of their arm and grab it, and then crack your other arm down on their elbow. The elbow can only bend one way, yeah? You can either really hurt them, bring your radius – big strong bastard of a bone, remember? – down hard on that elbow, break their arm, or you can be kinder and use your hand to push on their elbow, and force them to the floor. Only thing is, it’s got to be fast. Today we’ll concentrate on technique, so we’ll go slow, but at the end of the day, fast is what we’re aiming at. Oh yeah, and you got to know what you’re going to do with them once they’re on the floor. Because they are not going to be happy with you, do you know what I mean?’

  I thought that if I was Manjit I’d be highly tempted to use at least one of these techniques on Bo.

  ‘How was the kung fu?’ asked Nige politely, when I marched into the office. ‘Should I be scared?’

  ‘Very,’ I said and performed a made-up but elaborate high kick I knew he would appreciate.

  ‘Ooh. Move over Jackie Chan.’

  I beamed. I was determined to be agreeable – my behaviour the previous week had been appalling. And really, there was no need for it. Whatever it was, that episode, with, ah, I didn’t want to say his name, it was over, done with, forgotten. I’d never liked the saying that people are the sum of their past, it was too prescriptive. I could be whatever I wanted to be, that thing, that had happened, it was nothing to do with me, there was no need for it to have an effect – me, I was incidental to proceedings, it wasn’t personal, it could have been anyone. Therefore, I should shake off this descended darkness, this peculiar tetchiness, and get back to the happy business of playing Cupid.

  Even for Elisabeth.

  Then again, she probably had no further use for Girl Meets Boy. Well. She might. I suspected that Elisabeth didn’t plan to toil in an office ten hours a day until she hit sixty and was presented with a carriage clock. Elisabeth had the steel aura of a woman who’d worked herself blue to get into a good school, a top university and a superior firm, not because she was career-minded, but purely to add to an already impressive set of credentials for wifehood. Just like a Jane Austen heroine learning to sing and play the pianoforte, all the better to attract the right sort of gentleman.

  Nick was certainly a Prince Charming, but a few dates and Elisabeth’s businesslike brain would file the fun under ‘stage one’ and start searching for concrete evidence of providership. At the end of the fourth dinner, she’d dump Nick.

  Nick. Nick. Nick. Why did I care what she did with Nick? Why did I still feel such an attachment?

  ‘Issy’s here, dearest,’ said Nige, resting a hand on my shoulder. ‘Would you like me to grab us some coffees before the meeting starts?’

  Meeting?

  Nige saw my blank face. ‘The meeting about tomorrow’s Date Night? You called it, Holly.’

  ‘Oh! Of course. Sorry. And yes, please, coffee would be lovely.’ I wondered for just how long we would go on addressing each other like the Queen and Prince Philip (well, one likes to imagine). We were all being so sweet and good to each other, it felt silly and slightly patronising. Like when you’re a child at a party and the entertainer forces you to hold a conversation with a glove puppet. (Incidentally, Nick has never used a glove puppet.)

  The meeting was remarkable. We might have been taking part in a communications workshop in California. Intense eye contact. Lashings of listening and letting people finish their point without cutting them short with a yawn or a snort. Lots of ‘I feel this’ and ‘how does everyone else feel?’ Many murmurings of ‘absolutely’ and ‘you are so right’. One or two exclamations of ‘what an excellent point’. Serious head nodding. Heads bent in humble note-taking. The second the meeting ended, Claudia rushed to her desk drawer, grabbed her toothbrush, and sped, grimacing, to the Ladies. What can I say, I felt her pain.

  I also felt exhausted and vaguely anxious. The three of them had – with the utmost courtesy and respect – overridden my every preference. The pairings they’d suggested for tomorrow’s Date Night were explosive! We’d be lucky if we didn’t have people writhing on the floor in front of us! My God, anything could happen. At least three of the men were new. Issy had scoured their application forms, spoken to them at length on the phone and announced herself satisfied that none of them were lunatics. All the same. My stomach was full of worms.

  I’d only refused to budge in one instance. Elisabeth. It had been quite a dilemma. Did I place Elisabeth with the candidate most likely to be the love of her life so that she dropped Nick like a dead hedgeho
g? Or did I punish her trespass with a speed date that would enrage her ego and make her pray for spinsterhood?

  Issy had wanted to put Elisabeth with a new guy who had been named Samson by his thoughtless and self-indulgent parents. Fortunately for Samson, he possessed a fine head of hair. He also had engaging brown eyes and was a portfolio manager. He wanted four kids, loved beaches and any book by Charles Bukowski, and his hobby was rowing. Issy thought he and Elisabeth would be a great match. Secretly, so did I.

  However.

  Chapter 15

  ‘MR BOTTOMLEY?’

  ‘Dr Bottomley.’

  ‘Pardon me. I’m Holly Appleton, nice to meet you.’

  Dr Neil Bottomley, owner of the philosophy degree in life insurance, stepped into the light of the reception and I fought to keep a neutral face. (It was a more suitable face than the one I wanted to make – that of a teenage girl in a horror cartoon on encountering a decomposing zombie). Never mind the grey hair, what little there was of it – the teeth. This man had the teeth of a horse. And wrinkles. You could iron out his face and it would be twice the size of a normal person’s. He was a bona fide grandpa. Dressed in smart, grandpa apparel – a cream shirt under a maroon blazer, brown slacks and leather shoes with plastic soles.

  ‘Tell me, Miss Appleton, do we lurk in reception for a purpose or . . . ?’ He raised a bushy badger eyebrow.

  I tried not to look shifty. As it happened, we did lurk in reception for a purpose. To avoid being seen by any of my clients or colleagues. If Nige or Claw spotted us, I was in trouble.

  ‘Not at all,’ I replied. ‘Why don’t you get us a table in the café, order yourself a drink, and I’ll be with you in a sec.’

  ‘I’m teetotal, Miss Appleton, but yes, I can secure us a table, although I look at my watch and I see that that sec of yours has already expired.’