by Fiona Perrin
In my joy at Wilf remaining and in seeing Lily’s face stop looking so apprehensive as the GCSEs finally ended, it was hard not to let a little bit of my mind think about that. Mostly, I wanted to curl up in mortification. Here I was going round kissing him less than twenty-four hours after I’d done much more with someone else… and after I’d given him all that stuff about not having time for a relationship. At the best he would think I was extremely fickle. I didn’t want to think about the worst.
Why hadn’t I worked out I liked him earlier? It was as if he was invisible to me too, when we met. And now, when I spent quite a lot of time thinking about how lovely it would be to have his eyes on me, it was too late.
*
Meanwhile the police were making slow progress with working on what made Pete decide to help Wilf disappear. There were psychiatric reports to complete, an investigation and abject apology from the company behind Seymour House and still no conclusion as to what they would charge him with, if anything. This too hung over Wilf. He’d become more teenage-like in the last few weeks, sleeping for longer and longer periods; I would have been worried, but he still gave me his shy smile and spent hours in Jowan’s garage making unmelodious music.
Mum and Dad stayed in their own home. They were chastened by their experience of Seymour House, but it didn’t make them any more self-sufficient. I went back to fielding random text messages from them throughout my highly satisfactory working days dealing with everyday sexism at Carter’s Cars of north London.
I still cleaned up for them at the weekends. They were yet to discover their next passion.
*
Was it guilt that made me let the girls have a party to celebrate the end of their exams? Probably. After all we’d gone through, I wanted everyone to have another focus. My only proviso was that Wilf was given a decent DJ slot – or at least able to take the credit for a playlist pelted out from an iPod and the speakers he’d set up. It had to feel like his party too.
I imagine if you’ve ever had a teenage party in your home, you are probably shuddering as you remember alcopops and bottles of cider being thrown all over your floors and curtains, mopping up puke from your bathroom and breaking up amorous couples who’d sneaked past the sign you’d made for the stairs, which clearly said: No one upstairs please. Add in the very loud music, the unbelievable crap tipsy teenagers could talk at you all night and there was no reason to think of any teenage house-party experience without wondering why you ever said ‘yes’ in the first place.
But I did. I wanted Lily to keep the smile on her face; Daisy promised (and actually stuck to it) to stop swearing if she was allowed a party; and the DJ gig gave Wilf a new swagger.
On the night itself, I’d recruited Marvin to help me. I’d banned the AAs on the basis that if they came to the party I would be too drunk to look after the even-more-drunk kids. And the kids had suggested it might be a better idea to have a separate celebration dinner with Lois and Lorca, so they were also effectively banned, much to Dad’s chagrin.
So, picture Marvin and me, at about 9 p.m. on a Saturday night in early July, sitting in my scrubby garden, under the pear tree where I’d so stupidly kissed Pat, while the noise of forty kids ricocheting around my sitting room and kitchen to loud beeping came out of the back door.
‘It’s the calm before the storm,’ said Marv.
‘They’ve promised no more drink than I provided,’ I said. ‘Strictly limited to a couple of beers each.’
‘So that kid I saw with the massive pack of Desperados* was breaking the rules?’ Marv smiled.
‘Didn’t you take them off him?’ I said in horror.
‘Well, as soon as you stopped looking they all went out and got six-packs of the stuff out from under the front garden bushes,’ Marv said. ‘I couldn’t confiscate all of them or Daisy and Lily would hate me forever.’
The noise got worse and we had a good old gossip to try and ignore it. Mostly we discussed how Abby had amazed us all by falling in love. Well, she denied that it was anything as strong as actual love, but the signs were all there: she’d stopped hanging out with us so much, her determined face had taken on a softer hue and she’d even been seen wearing a dress. The lucky man was the lawyer, Dominic, who’d helped me when I’d first heard about Wilf. It seemed he’d refused to let her non-committal approach to him rest and actually demanded that she make it clear how she felt about him, one way or the other, after a few dates.
‘She respected that,’ Marv recounted, wide-eyed about Dominic’s inability to be terrified of Abby. ‘And she realised that he didn’t actually aggravate her too much, so she said he could stick around.’
There was some whooping from the side alley then, where a few kids had gone to smoke. I couldn’t smell weed and nor could Marvin, so we told them that smoking killed and to be a bit quieter.
‘Did you warn all your neighbours?’ Marv asked.
‘Next door said they’d go out for the evening and not get back till late and the other side said, “Thank heavens, we’re away on our holidays”,’ I recounted. ‘I put some notes through some other doors telling them it would finish at 11.00 p.m., even though, according to Daisy, it’s social suicide to have such a saddo end time.’
‘Did you put one through Pat’s door?’ Marv asked, pretending to look at the stars.
‘Yes, but nothing back.’ I shrugged. ‘I can’t make the man talk to me, Marv, if he doesn’t want to.’
*
I thought it was going pretty well. Jowan and Wilf were standing behind the iPod dock trying to look like superstar DJs and the kids were all pogo-ing around the sitting room or hiding their contraband beer behind their backs in the kitchen when they saw me. Several had come out into the garden and were having ‘DMC’† conversations. Daisy seemed to be arguing with a boy with a quiff just outside the back door; as I passed, I heard her say something about ‘western attitudes to conflict resolution’ so I figured it wasn’t too heated. She was wearing a vest that came just past her bottom and – after an epic row with me, when I’d threatened to cancel the party unless she put more clothes on – a pair of denim shorts. Inside, I could see Lily, wearing a pretty floral playsuit, pressed up against Aiden at the kitchen counter. They stopped snogging for a while when I walked through on a quick patrol before returning to the garden.
‘No puking, no underage shagging and no accidents,’ I reported back to Marvin.
‘Result,’ he agreed. ‘Are we allowed a glass of wine now ourselves?’
It was then, though, that there was an almighty crash from somewhere inside the house, the music came to an abrupt end and someone started screaming.
*
I ran towards the noise, Marvin close on my heels. ‘Out of the way,’ I ordered the kids in the kitchen, and rounded into the sitting room, where the sea of jumping teenagers had parted and there on the floor, clutching his leg in agony, was Wilf.
‘Oh, my God. Are you all right?’ All the teenagers gathered round in sympathy.
‘It really hurts, Cal,’ he groaned, holding his shin and writhing, his face curled up in pain. His voice was suspiciously slurry.
‘What happened?’ I knelt beside him.
‘I was just jumping around and…’ Yes, there was no way Wilf hadn’t been drinking – despite having been part of the extensive lecture I’d given to all the kids before the party started, about the dangers of alcohol.
I glanced at Jowan, who looked shell-shocked. ‘He jumped off the sofa,’ he mumbled. ‘He was trying to do a better pogo than me.’
‘How many beers, Jowan?’ I asked. ‘You’re not in trouble, I just need to know what Wilf has drunk.’
Jowan held up a half-litre of Desperado from behind the DJ table, which was two-thirds empty. ‘But we shared it, Cal,’ he said. ‘I promise.’
OK, so, even without any alcohol tolerance, Wilf was only likely to be tipsy rather than stomach-pump-requiring drunk. Still, it had made him stupid enough to try and dive off the sofa. The alco
hol, however, was going to make him feel much less pain than he would without it, and he was writhing beside me, clutching his leg.
I sighed. It had been going so well. ‘We’d better ring for an ambulance.’
*
So, that was how we ended up back in A & E at Seymour Hill hospital. While we waited for the paramedics, Wilf rolled around on the floor with scared, mildly intoxicated eyes. I tried not to be furious. ‘I should’ve kept an eye on what he was up to,’ I told Marvin. Jowan didn’t seem that worse for wear, luckily, or I’d also have had another parent to answer to.
Marvin packed all the kids into the kitchen and garden while I made Wilf comfortable on the floor with cushions. The paramedics arrived – by now we’d probably met most of the colleague base of the local ambulance force – and examined Wilf.
‘We’ll have to take him in, Ms Brown,’ one said. ‘Probably a strain but he needs an X-ray.’
When I showed them the bottle of Desperado, the paramedic just smiled. ‘That’s nothing really, Ms Brown, compared to what we’ve already seen tonight – and what you’re about to see in A & E. I’m pretty sure he’ll be all right. You’ve been a bit stupid though, haven’t you, Wilf?’
He blushed and started apologising. ‘Sorry, Cal, really sorry, I love you though.’
He was even sweet when he was an underage drunk. I smiled on. ‘I’ll just get a jumper.’
*
I’d ring Ralph on the way, I thought, as, having given very clear instructions to Marv about alcohol limits and home times, I went down the path following the stretcher containing Wilf.
He was saying, ‘Sorry, Cal, again,’ while he was lifted into the ambulance. One of the paramedics was already talking to him about his party playlist and he was answering without difficulty, so it was a temporary pissed-ness. The music had started up inside the house again, but this time, more quietly.
‘I’ll follow in the car,’ I said and turned to click the fob to open the car doors. It was as I turned that I saw the unmistakable shape of Patrick, standing under the street light.
‘Umm, everything OK?’ he asked. He looked browner than a few weeks back; while his face had the familiar look of concern it seemed to have round me, it wasn’t as smiling as it used to be.
‘Yes, just a sprain probably – Wilf drank a beer and was dancing and showing off and…’ I sighed. ‘And now we’re going to lovely A & E on a Saturday night, which is always a laugh.’
‘Is someone with the rest of the party?’
‘Yes, no worries, my friend, you remember Marvin? He’s got it under control. I’m going to get Wilf’s dad to meet me at the hospital and then come straight back. I’m pretty sure Wilf is OK.’
Patrick hung his head for a minute. ‘Want me to come with you?’ and then there was a flicker of a smile. ‘Just in case you’re bored of ambulances and A & E departments and…’
‘Drama?’ I asked with my eyes mock-wide.
‘You do seem to like a bit of that,’ he said. ‘Or shall I stay back and help Marvin out?’
‘Hmm, A & E on a Saturday night or a houseful of teenagers at a party? It’s a difficult choice.’
The front door of the house swung open and two kids could be seen snogging in the hallway, pressed against the coat rack.
‘I think, just for now…’ Patrick smiled ‘… Marvin might need me more than you.’
And he went off up the path into my house.
*
The A & E was familiar, although being there rabbiting on about being invisible seemed an age ago. The waiting room was full of people with minor injuries, some clearly slumped over drunk.
Wilf was wheeled past them into a cubicle and I sat down on the chair by his bed. ‘That’s one way of getting out of one of the twins’ parties,’ I joked. ‘Your dad is on his way.’
‘Sorry, Cal,’ Wilf groaned. ‘I didn’t mean to ruin your evening.’
Just then the curtain swung to one side and there was the glorious sight of Maura, her badge pinned to her ample chest. ‘Well, young man…’ she started and then saw me. ‘Well, if it isn’t Mrs Invisible.’ We both smiled broadly at each other while Wilf looked bewildered. ‘You like it so much here you can’t stay away?’
‘I’m so glad it’s you,’ I said. ‘This is Wilf, my sort of son, and he decided to go a bit nuts dancing at his sisters’ party.’
‘Were you crowdsurfing?’ Maura winked at him. ‘Normally we keep that sort of behaviour for well-known stars.’ Wilf blushed and started laughing while she carried on. ‘I suppose you’re going to tell me you are up there with Jay-Z and Kanye, aren’t you?’ and she fussed around sticking a thermometer in his mouth.
He tried to mumble, ‘Do you know Cal?’ while it was between his lips, but Maura quickly shushed him.
‘You could say so,’ she went on. ‘Now how are you doing?’
While she did all the triage tests on Wilf, we had a good old reminisce about my last trip to the hospital, until Wilf had forgotten all about a pain in his leg and was laughing away with us.
‘This woman came in all covered in curry,’ Maura told him with quite a lot of exaggeration. ‘But mostly, all you kids were driving her wild. I hope you’ve been making things a bit easier for her lately.’
I could only smile. If she only knew.
Ralph’s head appeared round the curtain and Maura caught my eye, raising an eyebrow that only meant: ‘This one yours?’
‘This is my ex-partner and Wilf’s dad,’ I told her, shaking my head.
‘Well, Mr Ex-Partner of Mrs Invisible, your son might have done something to his leg. The doc will be along at some point and he’ll probably need an X-ray. That could take a bit of time, what with him not being an emergency and it being a Saturday night.’ These were her words, but she rolled her eyes at me as if to say: ‘You seen what I have to deal with out there?’ and it was difficult not to be very glad there were people like her in the world.
*
I was apprehensive about getting back to the party. There was the standard panic about whether Marv and Patrick had managed to control the illegal drinking/puking/shagging and so on; and general exhaustion at the idea of having to clear up so many bottles and crisps trampled in the carpet. But it was more than that.
Patrick had come to help when I needed him most – again. And now, I knew, he would go back into his flat at number 36 and resume the frosty silence with me at number 42.
I felt a compulsive need to explain to him that I wasn’t the most awful, lying, treacherous woman that he’d ever met. But, examining my behaviour at that time, it was difficult not to come to the exact same conclusion myself.
*
It was 11.15 p.m. as I swung into Patchett Road. And after all my worries, my biggest one was that my house was eerily quiet.
There was no music, no sounds of kids flirting, teasing one another or arguing about politics. There was no one fallen over in the gutter near the pavement. No parents angrily waiting for their kids to stop snogging and come outside. I hurried very quickly to the back door.
Bodger met me there, his face surprised behind his grizzled old whiskers. And he was quite right, his doggy facial expressions always a good indicator of what was to come.
Behind him in the kitchen, Marvin was at the sink, wearing my butcher’s pinny over his stripy outfit. He was whistling into his goatee beard while round him, astonishingly, the twins and Aiden were busy gathering up bottles from the counter and throwing them into a bucket for recycling. Daisy was wobbling slightly as she did it, but no one seemed really the worse for wear.
There were no stray teenagers in sight. None who hadn’t been collected because their parents were at another party and had forgotten about them. None lying in a pool of something regurgitated.
Instead, I was met by a scene of industriousness, which had never been seen in my kid-ridden household. There was a smell of lemon Flash and Aiden had a sponge in his hand, which he seemed to be using to wipe the table.
&n
bsp; From the doorway, a smiling Patrick appeared, his arms stuffed with empty Becks bottles. He looked up at me and winked and I raised my eyebrows back at him in wonder.
‘All OK with Wilf?’ he asked, and the others noticed I was there.
‘He’s good – they think there’s nothing broken but he’s with Ralph waiting for an X-ray.’
‘We’ve nearly done all the cleaning up,’ Lily said proudly. ‘Patrick got everyone out of here on time and…’
My God, the man was a one-man wonder.
‘He gave us instructions and when I tried to tell him that hierarchies were a capitalist construct, he just laughed,’ Daisy added, sending herself up for once, and only slurring a bit.
‘We got squad goals,’ Aiden said. I think he meant that he was working as part of a team with a mission, but I couldn’t be bothered to interpret.
‘Thanks so much,’ I whispered.
Marv just looked at me with an evil glint in his eye and then, flicking his Marigolds, carried on washing up.
*
The pear tree. The scrubby back garden. Midnight, but, as it was July, still with a balm to the night air.
When all the cleaning, teasing and laughing was over and the kids had gone upstairs, supposedly to sleep, but really to have a party post-mortem, Marv very quickly exited left. ‘Date,’ he said and ran off down the path as I was thanking him. I didn’t believe him.
I’m not sure Patrick did either. ‘Nice bloke,’ he said. ‘But not that many women, for sure.’
We both stood awkwardly in the middle of the now-gleaming kitchen and I mumbled on for a while about how grateful I was for him coming ‘yet again’ to our rescue and we weren’t normally this dysfunctional as a family and…
‘It’s the fun in dysfunctional, though, isn’t it?’ he asked. It was difficult not to remember how sad he’d been back when he was telling me about how much he’d wanted a family of his own.