by Jemma Harvey
‘Why on earth did she do this?’ Georgie demanded, dumping the bottle on a convenient sideboard.
‘God knows. She’s probably a budding psychopath. Can you find me something of Lin’s to wear?’
‘Mummy’s things won’t fit you,’ Meredith said.
‘Something loose. You. Bathroom.’
We trooped upstairs, Georgie to Lin’s bedroom, Meredith and I to the bathroom. I stripped off my sweater and bra – my beautiful Rigby and Peller bra. The first thing was to wash me, then my clothes. ‘You’d better find some soap for clothing,’ I told Meredith. ‘You made this mess: you’re going to clean it up. You can wash my things.’
‘But I don’t know how!’ For once, Miss Smartarse admitted to something she didn’t understand.
‘It’s like chess. You can learn.’
Meredith backed away towards the door, which we’d left ajar. I could see her in the mirror. Suddenly, she stuck two fingers in her mouth and gave vent to an ear-splitting whistle. There was a pounding of feet, and the door was flung open. I wheeled instinctively, bare-bosomed, my nipples erect from the cold (I hadn’t waited for the water to run hot), to find myself face to face with the twins. There was a moment of frozen silence . . .
‘Wow!’ breathed Demmy.
Sandy said nothing. He was too busy staring.
Then I exploded. I can’t recall what I said except that, amazingly, it contained no four-letter words. Modesty went out the window: I was Venus Enraged, and I didn’t give a damn about my absent draperies. At one point Meredith tried to slip away, but I grabbed her by the scruff of the neck – or at any rate, the scruff of something – deposited her by the basin, and ordered her to get scrubbing. ‘And don’t forget to pick the chicken bits out of the plughole: you can flush them down the loo.’ Georgie came pelting along the passageway, assimilated the situation at a glance, and disappeared, returning with one hand behind her back. By this time, my tirade was running out.
‘Go to your room,’ Georgie told the boys. ‘Sit down, and write letters of apology to Cookie. And they’d better be good.’
‘Why?’ Sandy demanded truculently.
The hand emerged from behind her back. ‘Because I’ve got your PlayStations,’ she said, ‘and they go to the charity shop in the morning.’
I was lost in admiration. Georgie would have made some poor child a wonderful mother – or, failing that, a pretty good drill sergeant.
‘Mummy won’t let you,’ Sandy said, but some of the toughness had ebbed from his voice.
‘Want to put money on that?’
There was a thoughtful pause. Lin’s children might (possibly) respect her as a parent, but they could see she would be no match for Georgie, and Sandy was doubtless smart enough to realise that Mummy might not feel Right was on his side. With a last, yearning look at my heaving bosom, they filed out. Georgie and I exchanged the satisfied glances of generals who have got the enemy on the run, and I turned back to Meredith. Something in Georgie’s last line had rung a bell in my head. Want to put money on that? Money. Of course.
‘So how much did the twins pay you for that little stunt?’
‘Pay me?’ Meredith endeavoured to look innocent, but her face wasn’t cut out for it. Deadpan, yes. Malevolent, yes. Innocent, no.
‘How much did they pay you to throw up over me, so I would take my top and bra off, so they could see my tits?’ I elucidated.
‘They didn’t pay—’
‘How much?’
‘Fiver . . .’ she whispered.
I studied her narrowly. ‘I’m guessing ten. Each. When you’ve finished washing my clothes, you’re going to give it to me. Then I’m going to give it to a suitable good cause. The NSPCG.’
‘NSPCC,’ Meredith corrected quietly.
‘Nope. I mean the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Grownups. Are you done?’ I would have to wash everything myself afterwards, naturally, but it’s the principle that counts. ‘Don’t forget to scoop all those yukky bits of chicken out and chuck them in the loo, will you?’ (She didn’t like that part at all.) ‘Good. Now you’re going to bed.’
‘But—’
‘Bed.’
No doubt about it, authority was beginning to go to my head. It was a wonderful sensation. Maybe I could find a vacancy as a mad dictator somewhere.
Some time later, Georgie and I were sitting in the living room over restorative glasses of Shiraz. The children were in bed, or at least in their bedrooms. I was wearing a floppy blouse of Lin’s, all embroidery and mirror chips, while my sweater and bra were drying on the radiator. There were two new ten-pound notes in my wallet, retrieved from the drawer of Meredith’s desk, and two letters of apology reposed on the table in front of me. ‘Let me see,’ Georgie said, picking them up.
‘Dear Cookie,’ Demmy had written, ‘we are very sorry we got Meredith to do a sicky so you would take your clothes off and we could see your boobs. I know this was wrong and must have been embarassing for you. Please forgive us and don’t tell Mummy as she would be very angry. We promise not to do it again. Well, that’s something, I suppose! What about Sandy’s letter? Dear Emma Jane – more formal, I see – I am very sorry—’
‘He’s the dominant twin,’ I commented. ‘Demmy says we, he says I.’
‘I am very sorry for what we did. We didn’t mean you to be upset. It’s very hard when you are adullessent – is he trying to be cute? – and want to know what naked women look like but you aren’t allowed. It was very educational seeing you. Cheeky! Please don’t tell Mummy. Yours sincerely, Lysander Corrigan. P.S. Fantastic tits. Bloody hell! That boy will go far – though God knows in what direction. Well, you wanted to be a sex goddess . . .’
‘Not funny.’
Suddenly she glanced down at her own not inconsiderable bust. ‘I wonder why they picked you, not me?’
‘Size is everything,’ I suggested.
‘I suppose so.’ Georgie still looked faintly peeved.
‘Do you want projectile vomiting on your designer gear?’
‘No, but – am I getting old?’
‘You’ll never be old,’ I assured her, ‘even when you’re older.’
‘I’ll drink to that. In fact, I’ll drink to anything.’ Georgie refilled our glasses. ‘Now, what shall we watch? Football – cricket – horror?’
‘I’ve had enough horror for one night . . .’
Lin came home around one, without Derek. By that time my bra had dried out, though not my sweater. ‘How did it go?’ Georgie inquired.
Lin sat down, looking slightly mournful. ‘All right really. He was nice. He seemed to like me, too, but—’
‘No vital spark?’ Georgie said.
‘Vital spark?’
‘The vital spark of attraction. You didn’t feel tempted to meet his eyes across a crowded room.’
‘Definitely not. Maybe I’m just out of practice with the dating thing. Or else I should stop being romantic and settle for a relationship that’s just comfortable and friendly . . .’
‘No,’ Georgie and I said in unison.
‘Living with a man is hard enough,’ Georgie concluded. ‘Without love, why put yourself through it?’
‘Being on your own is worse,’ Lin said.
‘You’re not on your own.’ I jerked a thumb towards the ceiling.
‘Children aren’t the same,’ Lin said unanswerably. ‘Were they – were they good? Why are you wearing my blouse?’
‘I spilt some wine on my sweater,’ I said, avoiding Georgie’s eye. ‘I hope you don’t mind my borrowing this?’
‘’Course not. I was afraid – never mind. Were the kids okay?’
‘Fine,’ I said.
‘Practically angelic,’ said Georgie. The PlayStations lay on a nearby bookshelf.
Lin gave her a startled look. ‘Really? The thing is, Meredith can be . . . a bit of a problem.’ Now she tells us. ‘She was so young when Garry died – I feel you have to make allowances.’ Absently, she dr
ank from Georgie’s glass. ‘She gets sick sometimes. I mean – she makes herself sick.’
‘Bulimia?’ I hazarded, looking shocked. ‘Isn’t she rather young for that?’
‘N-not bulimia. More – sort of – temper. Or temperament. She says she just screws up her stomach and thinks sick thoughts and it comes out. The doctors say she’ll grow out of it. She’s awfully clever, you know. Brilliant at maths and computers and things. Prodigies tend to have these problems. I was pretty sure she wouldn’t do it with you, of course. Kids always behave better with strangers, don’t they?’
No comment. ‘Where does the mint-choc-chip ice cream come in?’ I asked.
Lin turned pale. ‘How—?’
‘You mentioned it before.’
‘Did – did I? Oh . . . Well, she likes to have it when she’s planning a sicky. She says it makes the vomit a nice green colour.’
‘She should try pistachio,’ I suggested.
‘Or pea soup,’ said Georgie.
Lin stared doubtfully at us, but we both did a better job than Meredith of looking innocent. ‘They must have liked you,’ she said at last. ‘I’m so glad. Perhaps, another time – if I was stuck—?’
‘Are you seeing Derek again?’ I said hastily, changing the subject.
‘I’ll call us a cab,’ Georgie chimed in.
‘It was great fun,’ I perjured myself, as we left.
‘Your children are unbelievable,’ Georgie added, choosing her adjective with care.
Lin smiled mistily. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘I hate them sometimes, but then, I’m their mother. You wouldn’t understand. You’ve only seen them at their best.’ She turned to me. ‘When you’ve got kids of your own, you’ll see what I mean. The whole parent thing – it’s amazing. You’ll see.’
For an instant, something flickered across Georgie’s face and was gone. ‘Okay?’ I murmured, in the cab.
‘If I ever have any regrets about motherhood,’ she said, ‘just say to me: mint-choc-chip ice cream. Promise?’
‘I promise,’ I said. ‘Personally, I’m getting sterilised in the morning.’
My biological clock, I decided, was ticking because it was a time bomb. I was in no hurry for it to go off.
Chapter 5
The breeze is chasing the zephyr,
The moon is chasing the sea,
The bull is chasing the heifer,
But nobody’s chasing me . . .
Ravel is chasing Debussy,
The aphis chases the pea,
The gander’s chasing the goosey,
But nobody’s goosing me.
COLE PORTER: Nobody’s Chasing Me
‘Too late!’ she cried, as aloft she waved her wooden leg.
Source unknown
A few days later I was having a meeting about the PR campaign for one of our long-standing authors with Laurence Buckle, Georgie and Lin. We were playing Twin Titles, a game where you have to roll two well-known book titles into one, usually via a common word. Everyone was cheating.
‘The Sun Also Rises on my Undoing,’ Georgie offered. (Fiesta: the Sun Also Rises and The Sun is my Undoing . . . get the idea?)
‘Captain Corelli’s Mandarin Is Not the Only Fruit,’ I said.
‘The Woman with White Teeth,’ said Laurence. ‘I only changed a preposition.’ You can tell an editor because he will use words like ‘preposition’ in normal conversation.
‘The Woman with White Fangs,’ Georgie riposted.
‘The Murder of Peter Ackroyd,’ Lin suggested. ‘I know it’s a book and an author, but . . .’
‘Good idea,’ said Laurence. It was not clear whether he was referring to the title or the concept.
‘Gerald Durrell: Captain Corelli’s Pangolin,’ I said. ‘I’m sure there was a Gerald Durrell about a pangolin. My mum had them all.’
‘No more Captain Corelli,’ Georgie decreed. ‘You’re fixated.’
‘Headache? Nausée? Use Captain Corelli’s Anadin!’
We were interrupted by the ringing of the nearest phone and the advent of Alistair Garnett, looking portentous. It’s impossible to get any work done in a publishing house. Alistair had been in a bad state ever since his PA broke her arm on a climbing holiday in Wales: the temp who was covering for her had proved dauntingly efficient and mildly contemptuous of all things editorial. He liked to find fault from time to time: we all knew that, and catered accordingly. Perfection in a subordinate frustrated him, particularly if it was in his own office. He also liked to radiate enthusiasm where others doubted and decried, but he wasn’t used to dealing with the underlying scorn of someone who had honed her skills in the frenetic atmosphere of the City. ‘I even find myself sticking up for the bloody writers!’ he had complained recently.
That day, he didn’t look in a mood to stick up for anyone. ‘Break up the party,’ he snapped. ‘Laurence, in my office.’
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Shit-fan collision course. In my office.’
Laurence made a face and trailed off in his wake. The rest of us abandoned our game and, as a last resort, resumed discussions on the PR campaign. Since the writer’s sales had been flagging the Accounts Department, with their usual logic, had lopped the budget, which meant we were going to have to get creative. ‘Creative’ is the word PR people always use when there isn’t enough money available for real promotion. I had often wondered about illegal stickers on the Underground and overnight graffiti, but although this is okay for a gig by some obscure band I don’t suppose it would do for a mainstream novel. Georgie began talking about pressing the flesh with her contacts on the literary pages and trying to find a slot in an upcoming festival. Once she got going, she sounded energetic and positive. Budget or no budget, Georgie always gives her all.
‘Has Warbeck any contacts of his own?’ Lin asked. (Emlyn Warbeck was the writer.)
‘Of course not. He’s a recluse who’s lived for the past thirty years in a remote Welsh village with no railway station. He’s only just traded in his typewriter for a laptop.’ Unless they do regular journalism, writers very rarely have ‘contacts’. Which is why publishers are always signing up C-list celebs – the kind who’ve spent their lives networking – to produce novels, only to discover, invariably too late, that they can’t actually write. You’d think the senior executives would know better by now, but they never learn. One Dirk Bogarde does not a literary stable make.
Anyone contemplating writing a book, pay attention. You think it’s easy? All you need is a hazy knowledge of grammar and the ability to put one word after another – right? And you’ve got this great idea for a plot which no one has ever done before? (Forget it. Everything has been done before. There really are only seven plots in the world – though I wish someone would list what they are. Then writers could simply pick and choose.) Take a look at the bestseller shelves. They are dominated by maybe a couple of hundred names – and that’s internationally. Beyond that, perhaps a few thousand make a decent living from their books, if that many. This is not fluke. If it were as easy as you think it is, there would be a lot more stars in the literary firmament. Most people can’t even tell a story straight. They go off into these rambling digressions . . .
Laurence reappeared after about twenty minutes looking pale – or as pale as someone with a naturally pink complexion could look.
‘What’s the flap?’ Georgie asked.
We offered him a chair but he preferred to pace up and down, fuming. Metaphorically, steam was coming from his ears. We could almost see it. None of us had ever seen Laurence angry – he was the type who became irritable and occasionally peevish but didn’t seem to have a temper to lose. We were all rather shocked.
‘Beauman,’ he said. ‘Fucking Beauman.’ He didn’t use four-letter words either. ‘Fucking arsehole Beauman. Fuck fuck fuck.’
And so on.
‘What’s he done?’ Georgie asked. Lin and I were too alarmed to pose home questions.
‘He’s heard I’m gay,’ L
aurence said, tight-lipped – a difficult attitude for someone whose mouth was of the soft-and-sensitive brand, ‘and he thinks my editorial touch would detract from the machismo of his prose.’
We stared at him, staggered. ‘I bet he didn’t put it as well as that,’ I muttered, voicing the second thought that came to mind.
Laurence wasn’t listening. ‘I did his last book, for God’s sake! Number one on every bestseller list! Well, except where it was number two. I’ve been wasting half my evenings on this one – and it isn’t like I get overtime. No complaints before. I don’t know who told him—’
‘Probably no one told him,’ Georgie said. ‘I expect someone just said something because they thought he knew.’
‘Who cares? It doesn’t matter now. Look, I’ve never made an issue of being gay. It isn’t a political thing for me, just a sexual preference. I don’t do the clichés. I still like football and beer – I don’t collect Princess Di memorabilia – I don’t wear a lilac suit and march for Gay Pride. I don’t even do guilt any more.’
‘Your gayness and your guilt are not besmirched With rainy marching in the painful field,’ I was unable to resist paraphrasing.
Laurence, cooling down, managed a short laugh. ‘Nice one, Cookie. The point is, gay isn’t who I am, it’s just who I fuck. What difference does it make to my work? None. We just have to pander to the whims of that bigoted cretinous little ex-con—’
‘At least it’s a nasty job you don’t have to do any more,’ I said.
‘Don’t be naïve,’ said Laurence. ‘It was my job security. My road to promotion. Without it, I’m just another editor, back on the bottom rung.’
‘Like me,’ I said.
‘Not quite. I forgot to tell you, Alistair wants you in his office. I suspect you’re taking over.’
‘What?’
Georgie, unforgivably, gave a shout of laughter. Even Lin giggled. I could see nothing funny in the situation.