The Bottle of Tears

by Nick Alexander

‘Just . . . eat your pizza, OK?’ Sander, who is feeling guilty about the paint thing, says.

  ‘So is Christmas going to be here?’ Max asks.

  ‘I don’t know. We’ll be able to talk about it tomorrow, won’t we? But I expect so.’

  ‘Cool,’ Max says, through a mouthful of pizza.

  ‘You’d rather it was here?’

  Max nods. ‘It’s all about how little mess we can make at Auntie Vicky’s. And those airbed things are rubbish to sleep on. Mine kept going down.’

  ‘How come they live in a flat, if Uncle Martin’s so loaded?’ Chloe asks.

  ‘Houses are very expensive in London. Their flat is probably worth twice what this place is.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Almost three million, I should think,’ Penny says, glancing at Sander, who shrugs.

  ‘They should sell it,’ Chloe says, ‘and go shopping.’

  ‘Wow,’ Max says. ‘That’s a brilliant idea, Chlo. They could buy a tent and live in that.’

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Chloe says.

  ‘Anyway, Christmas is boring in London,’ Max says.

  ‘Christmas is boring everywhere,’ Chloe offers, picking the olives and slices of red pepper disdainfully from her slice of pizza.

  Sander laughs. ‘Wow, you’ve added Christmas to the list of things you don’t like?’ He winks at Penny. ‘You won’t be wanting gifts, then. That’s a few quid saved, huh?’

  ‘It is,’ Penny agrees, grinning. ‘I might even be able to buy myself something for once.’

  ‘Oh, Mum,’ Chloe says, her face suddenly lighting up. ‘I was thinking, if I, like, only have one thing for Christmas, could I, like, have a make-up-box subscription?’

  ‘How about we try that sentence without all the “likes”, huh?’ Sander says, but it’s too late to force a more elegant repetition because, at the same time, Penny is asking, ‘A make-up subscription? Is that even a thing?’

  Chloe nods. ‘Siobhan gets a really good one from Glossybox. It’s only ten quid a month.’

  ‘Ten pounds a month?’ Sander says. ‘For make-ups? You must be joking.’

  ‘And they send you what for ten quid? A box of random make-up you don’t even want?’ Penny asks.

  ‘No, it’s really good, Mum,’ Chloe says earnestly. ‘And the stuff’s worth way more than a tenner. And if there’s something I don’t want – because some of it is going to be old . . . I mean, grown-up kind of stuff. Well, then you can have it, can’t you?’

  ‘Wow,’ Penny says. ‘My generous daughter. Thanks!’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Sander says. ‘What’s the point of that?’

  ‘Anyway, it’s not going to happen,’ Penny says. ‘That’s £120 a year. It’s way too expensive, Chloe.’

  ‘But Siobhan—’

  ‘I don’t care about Siobhan,’ Penny interrupts. ‘That’s a no. But if you’re pleasant from now until then’ (Max raises his eyebrows at this – he doesn’t believe in miracles) ‘we might see about putting together some make-up that you’re going to use and that I actually approve of. But you’ll need to make a detailed list for Father Christmas. So we can see what kind of thing you want.’

  ‘What she wants,’ Max says, ‘is to look like a chav.’

  Chloe punches her brother in the arm. It apparently doesn’t hurt much because Max just grins. ‘It’s emo, you dork, not chav,’ Chloe says. ‘Tell him, Mum.’

  ‘What’s emo? Wearing make-up?’

  ‘Black nail polish,’ Chloe says. ‘Dork thinks it’s chavvy.’

  ‘Ah,’ Penny says. ‘Well, I thought black make-up was goth, so . . .’

  ‘Goth?’ Chloe says. ‘Like, that doesn’t even exist any more.’

  ‘Chav does, though,’ Max says under his breath.

  ‘Max!’ Sander admonishes. ‘Stop!’

  ‘At least I don’t want to look like a suit,’ Chloe says.

  ‘Shut it.’

  ‘Maxy-boy wants a suit for Christmas,’ Chloe says in a childish, taunting voice.

  Penny and Sander turn to face their son. Penny looks confused yet hopeful while Sander simply looks horrified. ‘A suit?’ he says. ‘Why would you want a suit?’

  ‘I don’t,’ Max says. ‘She just saw me looking at a website where—’

  ‘He does,’ Chloe insists. ‘He wants a tie and stuff. And a suit. He wants to look like those twats on Suits.’

  ‘Oh, shut it, Chloe,’ Max says, now punching his sister back.

  She rubs her arm and pushes her bottom lip out. ‘It doesn’t matter what you wear,’ she says. ‘You’ll still look like a dork.’

  The next morning, Penny has barely stepped out of the shower when she hears Sander call out, ‘They’re here! They’ve arrived.’

  She gasps – she’s way behind schedule – then wraps a towel around her middle and runs up the three stairs that separate their bedroom from the main bathroom. As she passes Sander’s studio, she ducks in and joins him as he looks out of the window. Below them, Martin’s BMW is shuffling back and forth into a seemingly impossible parking space.

  ‘Kiss?’ Sander asks, turning to face her.

  Penny pecks him on the lips, then comments, ‘You’ve been smoking? Already?’

  Sander shrugs. ‘Just a little one to take the edge off things.’

  Penny rolls her eyes. ‘How can they even be here?’ she says. ‘It’s not ten yet, is it?’

  ‘It’s ten to eleven actually.’

  ‘Jeez . . .’ Penny says. ‘Can you do me a favour and go stack the breakfast things in the dishwasher? Vicky will have apoplexy if she sees the kitchen as it is. It looks like a Ramsay kitchen nightmare down there.’

  ‘Sure,’ Sander replies.

  In their bedroom, next door, Penny dresses quickly, towel-dries her hair and applies her minimum level of emergency make-up before running downstairs to find Victoria, Martin and Bertie watching Sander stack the dishwasher.

  ‘Hello, hello!’ she gushes, performing an actual double-take at Martin and Bertie. Martin is wearing a blue sharkskin suit with a white shirt and a pale blue tie. Even Bertie is wearing, for some reason, an ironed shirt and a blazer. ‘You two are looking very swish.’

  Martin grins amicably and nods in the direction of his wife. ‘Ask her,’ he says, simply. ‘We resisted at first, but . . .’

  ‘You know how Mum is,’ Bertie says, completing his father’s sentence.

  ‘I just wanted to see him in his new suit,’ Victoria says. ‘I had to go and pick it up from Savile Row for him, so the least he can do is let me actually see him wearing the damned thing. Don’t you think he looks gorgeous, though?’

  Penny nods. ‘I do,’ she says honestly. She actually thinks Martin is looking almost embarrassingly sexy in the sleek new suit.

  ‘That doesn’t explain why I had to dress up,’ Bertie complains. ‘I feel stupid in this blazer.’

  ‘You look fine,’ Victoria says, then, turning to Penny for confirmation, ‘Doesn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, you look lovely, Bertie,’ Penny agrees, even though she thinks that they all, Victoria included, look a little overdressed for a trip to the seaside.

  ‘You’ll need to rinse those off, first,’ Victoria tells Sander. He’s in the process of loading the eggy breakfast dishes into the dishwasher.

  ‘We don’t rinse anything off first,’ Sander replies, carrying on regardless.

  ‘But don’t you get—’

  ‘Vicky,’ Martin interrupts, fiddling nervously with his tie and grimacing as if he has toothache.

  ‘Hang on,’ she tells him. ‘So, Sander, surely you must get loads of food stuck in the—’

  ‘Vicky!’ Martin repeats, more forcefully. ‘Let the man stack his own dishwasher however he wants, OK?’

  ‘Sorry, I just . . . Of course. You’re right,’ Victoria says, emulating Martin’s gesture and fiddling with her bead necklace.

  ‘Actually, you’re right,’ Penny says, trying to defuse the tension. ‘But you know how lazy
we are around here. And they seem to come out cleanish anyway.’

  ‘I think you must just have a better dishwasher than I do,’ Victoria comments.

  ‘We don’t, believe me. So where’s Mum?’

  ‘We left Gran in the car,’ Bertie says. ‘She’s fast asleep. Shall I go check on her?’

  ‘Yes,’ Victoria says. ‘And try to wake her up maybe? Gently, though.’

  ‘So can I change now?’ Martin asks. ‘Now you’ve seen the suit. Honestly, I have to dress like this every day of the week.’

  ‘No,’ Victoria says matter-of-factly. ‘No, you can’t. I’m enjoying seeing you dressed smartly.’

  Martin grins at Penny and shrugs again. ‘See?’ he says. ‘Shall I take our bags upstairs?’

  ‘Yes,’ Penny replies. ‘You’re in the top back bedroom. It might smell a bit of paint still. Mum’s in ours. We’re in the studio. And Bertie’s in with Max.’

  ‘Bertie?’ Victoria calls out. ‘Are you OK going in with Max?’

  ‘Sure!’ Bertie calls back from the hallway. He’s already imagining the late-night Xbox session this will facilitate.

  Penny, a little surprised that Victoria even asked him the question, frowns. She’s not sure where they would have put him, had he said that it wasn’t all right. ‘I’ll, um, go wake Max and Chloe up then,’ she says.

  Upstairs, Penny has to shake Chloe repeatedly to wake her up. She gags at the smell coming from the guinea pig’s cage. ‘Wake up, get up and clean Beethoven’s cage,’ Penny says. ‘It stinks to high heaven in here.’

  ‘Oh, do I have to?’ Chloe groans, ‘I’m so tired, Mum.’

  Max, on the other hand, she finds awake and typing messages into Facebook. ‘Can you get washed and dressed?’ she says. ‘And wear something nice, please. They’re dressed up like the royal family down there.’

  ‘Who is?’

  ‘Martin’s in a work suit and Bertie looks like he’s just about to start public school or something.’

  ‘He will be soon. And then he’ll be in the Bullingdon Club, I expect. And after that he’ll be PM or Mayor of London or something.’

  Penny laughs. She enjoys these little moments of complicity with her son. ‘He’s not that bad,’ she says.

  ‘Why are they all dressed up anyway? Is something happening?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just because Vicky said so. You should consider yourself lucky I let you slob about in your trackies.’

  ‘I wouldn’t mind a change,’ Max says, ‘but you’d have to actually buy me some nice clothes.’

  ‘You have nice clothes! Why don’t you wear that blue shirt you got last Christmas?’

  ‘Um, maybe because it doesn’t fit me any more,’ Max says.

  Penny twists her mouth at this. Max, who has grown at least twenty centimetres since they gave him the shirt, is almost certainly telling the truth.

  ‘OK, what about the flowery one, then? Your James May shirt. I’ll bet that still fits.’

  ‘It needs ironing. It’s all crumpled up.’

  ‘Oh, just wear anything then,’ Penny says, caving in to the inevitable. ‘But try to choose something reasonable, please. Try not to let the side down, OK?’

  Max looks at his mother strangely, and she hesitates and then glances down at her own slacks and jumper. ‘What? This is OK, isn’t it?’

  ‘Sure,’ Max says. ‘You look nice. But, you know, talking of not letting the side down . . .’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think you can get Dad out of his favourite jumper for once?’

  Penny sighs and nods. Sander’s favourite jumper has become so permanent a fixture that she barely even notices he’s wearing it any more. But Max is right. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘I’ll see what I can do.’

  She leaves Max to shower and dress and then climbs to the top floor, where she can hear Victoria and Martin settling in. Preparing to bask in the warm glow of praise for her decorating skills, she pushes the door open and asks, ‘Is everything all right for you, then?’ But her smile fades almost immediately.

  Victoria has frozen mid-gesture, caught in the act. In her right hand she has a small square of tissue and, in her left, a package of moist Dettol antibacterial wipes. She’s been caught in the process of cleaning or, more precisely, disinfecting, the bedroom light switch.

  Martin, who has removed his jacket and is busy unpacking his suitcase, grins amusedly. ‘Yes,’ he says. ‘It’s lovely up here now, isn’t it, Vicky?’

  Victoria bites her bottom lip and nods nervously. ‘Yes, lovely . . . So much, um, brighter than before,’ she splutters.

  Penny looks her sister in the eye for a moment. She considers saying, ‘I have just spent the entire week painting this room. And the first thing you do when you arrive is disinfect it?’ But then her eyes drift to the light switch in question and she sees that it truly is disgusting. It is grey and sticky and smudged and paint splattered, and has probably never been cleaned since the house was built, whenever that was. So her anger vanishes and is replaced, instead, by a hot flush of immature shame. ‘Great,’ she says crisply. ‘I’ll, um, leave you to it, then. See you downstairs.’

  They are walking along the seafront, restricted to a gentle amble by Marge’s presence. It’s a bracing late-October day, sunny and bright, but with icy gusts of wind that bring tears to their eyes. Because Penny is so behind schedule, and because Martin and Victoria are concerned about inconveniencing everyone with their visit, Martin has insisted on taking everyone out for lunch.

  The seafront seems timeless and the light somehow cinematic. Penny is repeatedly experiencing a strange sensation – part déjà vu, part time travel – every time she glances over at Martin, so stiff and upstanding, and sixties, in his suit and his long overcoat.

  Though she has managed to extricate Sander from The Jumper, she can’t help but notice, following Max’s remarks, the shocking contrast between the two families’ wardrobes. And despite her best efforts, she can’t help but feel an unwelcome pique of resentment that they can’t afford nicer things. Martin’s suit alone must have cost £500 – perhaps a lot more – and Vicky’s Comme des Garçons brogues have got to have cost another four.

  Bertie and Max, as always when together, have regressed to childhood and are racing around and running along walls, and after the first half a mile even Chloe forgets to sulk and joins in.

  Sander and Martin, discussing the rugby, stride ahead, while the sisters walk either side of their mother, grabbing her arms whenever a gust of wind threatens to sweep her away.

  ‘It’s good to see the children getting on,’ Marge says.

  ‘It is,’ Penny agrees, smiling at the sight.

  ‘Chloe so rarely smiles these days,’ Marge adds.

  ‘Oh, she’s not so bad. She’s a bit of a sulker, maybe,’ Penny admits. ‘But she’ll grow out of it.’

  ‘You put up with too much of her nonsense,’ Marge says. ‘Don’t you think, Vicky?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Victoria says diplomatically. ‘Girls are different, I think.’

  ‘She’s thirteen, Mum,’ Penny says. ‘That’s just what thirteen-year-old girls are like, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Only if you let them be like that.’

  ‘Nope,’ Penny says definitively. ‘They’re exactly like that whether you let them or not.’

  By the time they reach V.C. Jones, an unassuming little fish and chip restaurant with Formica tables and piled-up cans of Fanta, Marge – who insisted on walking – is exhausted, and everyone is suffering from the cold.

  ‘Ooh, this’ll be lovely,’ Penny says as they push into the steamy interior. ‘I haven’t had fish and chips for months.’

  ‘We’d have fish and chips every day if we lived here,’ Bertie says.

  ‘I’m not sure about every day,’ Victoria replies. ‘We might get a bit fat otherwise.’

  ‘We never eat out,’ Penny confides to her sister as they shuck their coats.

  Once the order
s have been placed and everyone is seated, Martin claps his hands together. ‘Well, this is great, isn’t it?’ he enthuses. ‘I love these traditional places. So real!’

  Penny sees that Marge, seated opposite, rolls her eyes and has to restrain a smirk.

  ‘So, Sander and I were talking,’ Martin continues. ‘How do you feel about us all going to Spain next summer?’

  ‘Spain?’ Penny says, shooting a frown in Sander’s direction. ‘I don’t think we can afford to go to Spain.’

  ‘It wouldn’t need to be expensive, apparently,’ Sander says, sounding vaguely apologetic.

  ‘I’ve been wanting to do a bit of the Santiago de Compostela route for years,’ Martin explains. ‘It would be fun if we could all do it together, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, that could be fun,’ Penny says, thinking that going anywhere is a financial impossibility yet understanding Sander’s need to play along. This not-being-able-to-keep-up-with-the-Joneses thing can get embarrassing.

  ‘You and I haven’t been on holiday together since Paris,’ Victoria says, smiling at her sister.

  ‘Wow!’ Penny replies. ‘Paris!’

  ‘Surely you’ve been away since then,’ Marge says. ‘You were in your twenties, weren’t you?’

  ‘Not together, we haven’t,’ Victoria says. ‘And yes, I was twenty-three, I think.’ Addressing Penny, she adds, ‘We had fun in Paris, didn’t we?’

  ‘Um!’ Penny replies, nodding, even as she remembers Victoria’s Gestapo-like grip on the holiday and their constant arguments about whom to trust and whom (according to Victoria) to run away from. It is not mere accident that they haven’t holidayed together since.

  ‘I think it’s a lovely idea,’ Marge declares.

  ‘Sounds lame to me,’ Chloe murmurs.

  ‘Oh well, that’s that then,’ Max jibes. ‘Call everything off. Chloe’s not keen.’

  ‘I love a bit of proper sunshine,’ Marge says.

  Martin pulls a face. He runs a finger inside his shirt collar. He suddenly looks uncomfortable. ‘Actually, Marge,’ he says, ‘I think you might want to sit this one out. Camino de Santiago is a pilgrims’ route. It’s, well, it’s a walking holiday.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So, fit as you undoubtedly are, I’m not sure you’ll be up to it, I’m afraid. We’re talking between fifty and a hundred miles in a week.’