by Anna Maxted
I don’t, but it would seem churlish to refuse, so I say, ‘Yes please.’
Luke clumsily clasps me to him. My nose is squashed into his armpit which makes it difficult – and probably unwise – to breathe in. Eventually, I am forced to snuffle loudly for air. Luke obviously mistakes the snuffle for a sniffle because he kisses my hair, pats my back (nearly winding me) and exclaims, ‘Don’t cry!’
I disentangle myself and croak, ‘I’m not!’ Then I add gruffly, ‘Thanks for, um, worrying though.’
Luke beams and says, ‘What happened at work then?’
I consider telling him the truth then decide against it. He’d blurt it out to Marcus by mistake. ‘I got told off for being late, this morning,’ I whisper.
‘Maybe you should set your alarm earlier,’ says Luke immediately.
‘Mm,’ I say, trying to hide my irritation. I’ve already lectured him on offering solutions where they’re not wanted. There is a silence which is cut short by a distant roar. We stare at each other, intrigued.
‘Maybe Marcus had a bad day at work today too,’ says Luke. I do hope so.
We jump up and run into the kitchen, where Marcus is dancing from toe to toe like a hobgoblin and frenziedly flapping at the oven with a dishcloth. The room is thick with grey smoke. I peer into the haze and see the French bread burning to death. ‘Shit! I forgot about that,’ I say, carefully avoiding any mention of the word ‘sorry’. Marcus speeds across the room, holding the French bread – a blackened corpse with glowing red innards – at arm’s length. He drops it into the sink, twists the cold tap, and the charred remains of my dinner hiss and sizzle.
Michelle coughs pointedly. Luke watches, gob agape, entranced by the spectacle of Marcus in a tizz. I suck in my cheeks to stop myself laughing but don’t entirely succeed. Marcus hurls the dishcloth to the floor like a gauntlet, and shrieks, ‘My Poggenpohl is a ruin! I am so sick of you and your slovenly ways, you, you, you slut!’
I have never been so insulted, not even by Jasper. ‘Takes one to know one,’ I reply, and stalk out. Before running into my room, I yell from the hallway, ‘And if I were a bloke with a Poggenpohl like yours, I’d bloody well keep quiet about it!’ Childish, I admit, but the best I can do at short notice.
Chapter 21
BRITISH WEATHER IS famed for its sneakiness but this year, throughout August, it disgraced itself. The entire month, I’d pull open the curtains at 8.15 to the soporific sight of a baby blue sky. I’d scurry to the station in T-shirt, flimsy trousers and open-toed sandals, and feel the sun shine seductively warm on my skin. Before starting work I’d flap around exclaiming to colleagues, ‘Isn’t it hot!’ Then at 12.45 I’d glance out of the window, wondering whether to get lasagne or a baked potato for lunch (answer: whichever looked bigger in the shop), and behold a monsoon!
The sky would loom as dark and baleful as doomsday and someone would inevitably rush in, shake the cold droplets from their hair, brush off their thin cotton shift dress, and proclaim it ‘Freezing outside.’ This climatic spite would persist until the day I’d painstakingly haul in a raincoat and extra jumper. Then there’d be a twenty-four-hour heatwave. The only consolation was, everyone got caught out. Except Lizzy.
‘Are you telepathic or something?’ I grumbled one lunchtime, huddling under her umbrella to save my hair from water damage.
‘No,’ she replied, ‘I watch the weather forecast before I go to bed.’
Despite the rain, I stopped in the street. ‘By God you’re a genius!’ I exclaimed. ‘What a brilliant brilliant novel idea!’ But while admiring her guile, I knew I’d never have the patience to follow her example.
So I got wet. I always do. I’m like Fatboy in this respect – I regard forward planning as a yawn. (Fatboy’s favourite pastime is to creep into Marcus’s newly washed duvet as it dries over a chair, even though he always gets lost and trapped in it. But he’d rather embark on the duvet adventure now, and miaow piteously for help later.) I also rarely think ahead, then suffer the consequences.
And so, it never in a trillion years occurred to me that my mother and Nana Flo might be driven to pal up, and that I’d feel spurned and foolish and jealous when they did. Lizzy, though, has more foresight than I do and has realised – in retrospect – that their friendship was a certainty.
I tell her all about it over lunch on Friday, as by then I am able to sound nonchalant. She nods wisely and sips at her Evian. ‘I suppose they have your father in common, if nothing else,’ she says.
‘Yes, but they’ve always had my father in common,’ I say, with my mouth full of tuna mayonnaise, ‘and it made bugger all difference.’
I pause, fascinated, as Lizzy daintily extracts the capers from her olive pasta sauce and lines them up neatly at the side of her plate. ‘Why didn’t they get on?’ she asks. I frown. ‘Don’t frown, you’ll get wrinkles!’ she cries.
‘Sorry,’ I say. I try to think without frowning. ‘I get the impression Nana Flo disapproved of my mother.’
Lizzy gasps: ‘Why? Your mother’s lovely!’
I shrug. ‘Well, although Nana worked herself, she doesn’t really approve of women working. Not married ones.’ Lizzy rolls her eyes. I add: ‘Less time to devote to my dad. And she was never a great housewife.’
Lizzy giggles. ‘So that’s where you get it from,’ she says.
‘I have other talents,’ I grin. ‘Talking of sex, how is Brian?’ (I still think the man’s a berk but for Lizzy’s sake I’ll feign interest. Anyway I am interested. In a repulsed sort of way.)
Lizzy blushes, ‘Really well. We’re getting on brilliantly.’
I widen my eyes and lean towards her: ‘Specify.’
Lizzy beams, ‘We were chatting recently and I happened to mention that I liked fresh figs but they’re really expensive. And last night he came round to see me and he’d bought me a great big bagful! In November!’ Not being a massive fruit fanatic I am unappreciative of the lengths one has to go to in order to obtain fresh figs in November. Don’t you just walk into a shop?
Lizzy misreads the dim expression on my face and adds, humbly, ‘He’s not traditionally romantic, like Adrian is to Tina – all those bouquets – but I’ve never really cared about flowers. Not that it isn’t lovely for Tina, of course. But the figs! I was so touched. It was such a thoughtful gesture.’
I jump to correct her: ‘Oh no, I didn’t think anything bad, it was a lovely thing for him to do . . . if you want your girlfriend parping away all night like a foghorn.’
Lizzy reddens again and giggles. Suddenly she stops laughing, and taps the table as if to re-direct our attention to the business of the day. She says, ‘So how come Nana Flo approves of your mother now?’
I have no idea. ‘I have no idea,’ I say, ‘I don’t even know if she does approve of her.’
Lizzy replies, ‘But she must, if they’ve started meeting up all of a sudden!’
God knows. ‘She’s weird,’ I say. ‘I think, she’s never taken to my mother but she’s always tried to be friendly.’
Lizzy nods, ‘For your father’s sake?’
I nod too, ‘Yes, I suppose.’
Lizzy pauses. ‘So maybe, now your father has . . . passed on, she’s still being friendly for his sake.’
I wonder. ‘Yeah, maybe.’ I say, ‘Maybe it’s because he’s no longer there to fight over. But I think it’s down to my mum too. She never needed Nana Flo. And now, perhaps, she does.’
Lizzy looks excited: ‘And maybe,’ she exclaims in a breathy I-love-it-when-a-plan-comes-together whisper, ‘now Nana Flo has lost a son, she needs a daughter! Now I think about it, it makes perfect sense!’
Blimey, I wouldn’t go that far. ‘Nana Flo,’ I say, ‘is the least maternal woman I’ve ever met, apart from my mother. She’s not what you’d call sympathetic. She didn’t stop my mum slashing her wrists, did she?’
Lizzy purses her lips, ‘No, but that’s not what I’m saying. How could she stop her? No one could.’
I s
ay, ‘Except my father bouncing back from the grave, alive and well and not a ghost, shouting “tricked you!”’
Lizzy turns down the corners of her mouth, dismayed at my irreverence. ‘Oh Helen,’ she says, ‘no one can replace your father. But even if your grandmother isn’t sympathetic – I’m sure she cares.’
That’s the problem with Lizzy. She thinks everyone is as goodly as she is. Even me. I sigh and say, ‘Yeah. I suppose Nana’s better than nothing.’ I think of my efforts to care for my mother and a small defensive voice inside me says, ‘But you weren’t nothing. You were something. Your cooking was vile but you weren’t nothing.’ Aloud, I say cautiously, ‘Funny how my mum didn’t tell me about seeing my grandmother, don’t you think?’
Lizzy tilts her glossy head to one side and considers. Then she says, ‘Maybe she forgot.’ And maybe the earth is flat and the moon is a large piece of cheese. Time to change the subject. The conversation has turned maudlin and, frankly, after Monday I’ve had maudlin up to my eyeballs.
‘You know when you do that body brushing thing?’ I ask slyly.
‘Yes,’ says Lizzy, sitting to attention.
‘I always forget: you brush towards your hands and feet, don’t you?’
Lizzy looks aghast: ‘Oh heavens, no! You brush towards your heart! It’s essential!’ She embarks on a ten-minute lecture about exfoliation and friction and massage and on a deeper level improving microcirculation and removing toxins and excess fluid and – Nana Flo is forgotten. Mission accomplished. I am relieved that when we next convene for lunch Tina deigns to join us and therefore serious conversation is banned. In fact, almost all conversation is banned. I start off on what I assume is a safe topic: Adrian.
Me: [jokily] ‘So Tina, how’s lover boy?’
Tina: [coldly] ‘What do you mean by that?’
Lizzy: [diplomatically] ‘She, Helen, means Adrian – he seems mad about you. We wondered how he was.’
Tina: [shiftily] ‘Well, thank you.’
Me: [offended] ‘I don’t see why you’re so touchy about a simple question. It’s not like I asked the size of his dick.’ [thinks]: Anyway, back when this relationship wasn’t such a holy relic you told me, so I know anyway.
Tina: [snappish] ‘Some things are private. We’re not fucking fifteen.’
Me: [goading] ‘What’s wrong, are you premenstrual?’
Lizzy: [hurriedly] ‘I’m sure Tina isn’t but I’ve got some Evening Primrose Oil if she is. It’s superb, really effective. I swear by it.’
Tina: [furious] ‘I haven’t got PMT! Bloody hell! You wouldn’t ask a man that! And don’t give me that flower oil crap! I swear by it too – it’s fucking shite!’
Lizzy: [shocked] ‘Tina, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.’
Me: [sullen] ‘Me neither.’
We fall silent. Lizzy fiddles nervously with her steamed noodles, I prod sulkily at my baked potato, and Tina scowls at her baked beans on toast. I chant: ‘Beans, beans, good for the heart, the more you eat the more you f—’
Tina slams down her fork and roars: ‘Shut it!’ If you ask me, she’s been watching too many re-runs of The Sweeney.
And this may sound contrary, but the snarlier Tina becomes, the keener I am to annoy her. So I move away from flatulence jokes and on to personal jibes. Tina has a scabby cold sore by the side of her mouth. I rip off a piece of brown potato skin and stick it on my lower lip: ‘Who’s this?’ Lizzy stifles a giggle. I catch Tina’s stricken expression and collapse. I am wheezing with laughter at my own gag when Tina leaps up, scraping her chair, and rushes out.
I freeze. ‘Do you think she’s okay?’ I ask Lizzy.
Lizzy looks perturbed. ‘I’m not sure,’ she says.
I sigh and throw down my napkin. My potato is as hard as granite and as tasty. ‘Wait here,’ I say. ‘It’s my fault. You finish your noodles.’
We both run out of the café and chase after Tina. ‘Tina! Stop! I’m sorry!’ I shout. But she keeps running. Happily, she is encumbered by her Prada shoes and pencil skirt and we soon catch her up. It takes four minutes of five-star grovelling before she agrees to let us buy her a coffee. This time, Lizzy and I restrict the conversation to our love lives. Or, in my case, lack of one.
Lizzy: [shyly] ‘I’d love you both to meet Brian properly. Are either of you free tomorrow night?’
Tina: [stiffly] ‘Ta for the offer, but I’m busy I’m afraid.’
Me: [proudly] ‘Me too.’
Lizzy: [after consideration] ‘Oh. What are you doing, Helen?’
Me: [coy] ‘I’m seeing Tom actually. You know, the vet. You remember Tom, Tina?’
Tina: [more relaxed] ‘I certainly do, Tequila Girl!’
Me: [suddenly keen to change subject] ‘Anyway Lizzy, let’s arrange to meet Brian another time.’
Tina: [getting even] ‘So! Tom is on again, is he? I didn’t realise he was into watersports.’
Me: [incensed] ‘Shut up! Don’t be disgusting!’
Lizzy: [clueless] ‘What? I don’t get it.’
Me: [quickly] ‘Never mind. Where are you going with Brian tomorrow then?’
Tina: [butting in] ‘So Helen, tell us more about Tom. How far have you got?’
Me: [glaring at Tina] ‘It’s not like that. Anyway, “some things are private.”’
Tina: [spitefully] ‘In other words you’ve got nowhere.’
Me: [defensive] ‘Who said I wanted to get anywhere anyway?’
Tina: [sarcastic] ‘So it’s platonic? Oh I believe you.’
Me: [angrily] ‘I only split up with Jasper about a minute ago! Why do I always have to be shagging someone?’
Tina: [nastily] ‘You tell me.’
Me: [hurt] ‘Thanks for that.’
Tina: [not that sorry] ‘I’m sorry, Helen, but you’re always splitting up with Jasper.’
Lizzy: [finally able to get a word in] ‘We just want the best for you. That’s all. And Jasper, well, Jasper isn’t always that thoughtful.’
Me: [embarrassed] ‘Blah blah blah. Leave Jasper out of it.’
Tina: [triumphantly] ‘We did until you brought him into it!’
Lizzy: [desperate] ‘Why don’t we all go out later in the week? I’ll bring Brian, and you two can bring whoever you like or it can just be the four of us? How about Friday?’
Me: [subdued] ‘Okay. But it’ll probably be me on my own.’
Tina: [rubbing it in] ‘I’ll see if Adrian has any plans.’
Between the two of them I am relieved to get back to the office. Which is a first. Laetitia promptly sends me out again to buy her some non-perfumed deodorant. ‘As you wish!’ I chirrup and rush off. When I return, Laetitia asks me to call an expert for a quote on ‘domestic violence’ and I start ringing around immediately. Usually I faff around scrunching up bits of paper on my desk for at least half an hour in preparation. I know Laetitia is impressed by this afternoon’s uncharacteristic enthusiasm because when I cry ‘Done it!’ ten minutes later, she replies, ‘Good.’
She’s only ever said ‘good’ to me twice before (the first time when I passed on the message that the Girltime astrologer was threatening to resign and the second time when I told her that someone called Oliver Braithwaite had called ‘re the hunting weekend’). I beam and reply, ‘My pleasure.’ I need every Brownie point I can scrape. I am also trying to distract myself from dwelling on the fact that on Thursday morning my mother has her first appointment with the Nut Nurse. (The nurse is coming to the house as my mother refused to go to the clinic.)
I decide that from now on I’m going to be ultra-efficient until Laetitia is forced to promote me to junior features writer. She won’t want to, of course, but she’ll have no choice. The thought of my imminent ascension to grandeur and the wealth and kudos it will bring cheers me. Maybe I’ll be trusted to write the Happening page and conduct interviews with minor soap stars, and some poor keen innocent will unwittingly replace me as Deodorant Monitor. I’ll need a trouser suit, of course.
I recover speedily enough to say in a friendly tone, ‘Hello, Nana, it’s Helen. How are you?’
She replies: ‘Can’t complain, Helen. What can I do for you?’ Helen? She never addresses me by name! Could be the onset of senility. That or she’s been watching It’s a Wonderful Life and the euphoria hasn’t yet worn off. Next thing she’ll be calling me honeychil’.
Bemused, I ask to speak to my mother. ‘How is she?’ I ask quickly (best to be forewarned).
‘Not so bad,’ says Nana Flo briskly. ‘We’re keeping busy.’ Oh?
‘Like how?’ I say, intrigued.
‘Clearing out cupboards,’ she replies tartly. I squeeze my nose between my thumb and forefinger to snuff the laughter. Let justice be done!
‘Actually, Nana,’ I say, when I regain composure, ‘I er, don’t have to speak to my mother, I can ask you.’
There is a pause. ‘Yes?’ she barks.
I clear my throat and say, ‘I’d like to take you and Mum out for dinner this Thursday, if you’re both free.’ (That last bit was a courtesy.)
When Nana Flo replies her voice is as stern as ever: ‘You sure you’ve got the money?’ Of all the ungracious cheek!
‘Yes,’ I say (not a total lie, as I will have it when Barclaycard lend it to me).
‘Then,’ intones my grandmother plummily, ‘I don’t see why not.’
I grin down the phone and crow: ‘Sorted!’
‘What?’ replies Nana Flo.
Chapter 22
I HAVE MORE embarrassing moments than most. One of my earliest occurred when I was four – my parents had dragged me out for a bracing walk in Regent’s Park one Saturday morning and they were so engrossed in each other they didn’t notice I’d lagged behind, transfixed by the huge orange fish in the ornamental pond. When I looked up my parents were gone and the park was full of tall terrifying people. I ran among them, stumbling in panic and scuffing my black patent shoes. At last, I spotted my father from behind, and slipped my hand into his. He looked down, and I looked up – into the bemused face of a stranger. Thankfully, because I was four and cute the stranger found it funny and helped me locate my real dad.