by Anna Maxted
The gesture is universal. This is for you. Confused, I glance at the pianist. Belinda! I didn’t even know she could play the piano! I can’t help it. The tears spill. This music is a kiss of life to the soul. And Mel is magical. For once, she escapes detachment and loses herself to the passion. She glides, weightless, joyful, her every move as smooth as syrup. She seems to hang in the air. I can practically feel the heat off her. I start, as a male dancer in a turquoise head scarf bounds onto stage—for a millisecond I think Oskar?—Matt!
Matt as the Nutcracker Prince, squeezed into a crimson velvet and gold brocade jacket, and wearing—judging from his turnip-like crotch bulge—approximately five jockstraps under his tights. His haughty expression as he flings himself about like an ungainly mountain goat is the spit of Oskar—whose exquisite talent is a squeak less breathtaking than his superiority complex. Mel’s sweet saintly smile, as he hauls her into the air like a sack of celery, doesn’t falter. I laugh so hard that Paws wakes up with a jerk.
“That,” I say afterward, hugging them all, “is without doubt the nicest thing that anyone has done for me, ever, in my entire life.”
Belinda blushes beet, and even Matt looks bashful. Mel cries, “We wanted to give you a special treat, and it was my idea—I thought of it!”
“It was a brilliant idea, Mel,” I say, “and you’re a stunning, stunning dancer. And Bel’s piano playing is amazing! As for you,” I add, turning to the Nutcracker Prince, “is there no beginning to your talent?”
Matt cuffs me round the head. “Cheeky cow. Now, go on—disappear, before I get emotional. It’s Friday night in an hour. I’m sure you have a host of wild parties to attend.” They wave me off at the stage door. I skip to the tube. Wild parties indeed. I am not a party animal. What is a party animal anyway? Paws in a bandanna? I sit on the train, grinning—despite being pinned between a huge American woman and a man whose legs are sprawled so wide they’re practically 180 degrees. That’s an impressive turnout, and I want to ask if he’s a professional dancer. Actually, I want to say, “Shut your legs—you’re on public transport, not relaxing at home on your sofa, you’re squashing me to death!”
Tony—an arch sprawler—believes that if you want a space in this world you must fight for it. That said, he dislikes women sprawling on the tube, as it makes them look “like slappers.” He once made the mistake (on purpose) of recounting this prejudice to Frannie, who replied—to his grinning face—that it was “yet more depressing evidence of a primitive and unhewn mind.” What was it she said about dieting? Something about sanctioning my own repression. But right now I don’t feel repressed. I think of this afternoon’s performance and, in the soppiest, silliest, girliest, frilliest way, I feel good. I widen my legs an inch.
My mood only dips when I reach home. My flat is dark and silent. I don’t shout “Anyone there?” like short-lived people do in horror films. I knock on Andy’s door and slowly, warily, boot it open, as if a bat might fly out. The room is bare, except for the glitterball. No bats either. I shut the door again. I plod into the bathroom. The spare shelf is empty. I inhale deeply. A faint lemony scent of aftershave lingers. I march to the window and heave it open. The cold air gusts in, blowing every last trace of Clinique Chemistry from the premises. “That’s right, piss off,” I say. I sweep into the hall, and when the phone rings, I pick it up without thought, like a mother would a crying baby.
“Hello?” I say, thinking, Damn.
“Nat?”
Nooooooooooooooooo! “Yes,” I say sadly.
“It’s Babs, you dipstick! I can’t believe you didn’t call me back! I’m so angry with you!”
31
I ONCE SENT BABS TO THE VIDEO SHOP TO RENT A “chick flick” and she returned with Joan of Arc. “It’s got history, it’s got period costumes, it’s got a bird in it!” she cried, when she saw my disappointment. “What more do you want?”
“It’s about FIGHTING!” I bawled. I’d assumed my meaning was obvious to her. I suppose I always do. She knows me so well, it’s a surprise when she doesn’t read my mind. Especially when my thoughts are as guilty as they are now. I am about to cry, We weren’t really kissing—Simon was drunk! when Babs adds, “You’re so secretive, why didn’t you tell me you were looking for work?”
My jaw drops. The mind warp is similar to hearing a cat growl. Finally, I stammer, “What do you mean?”
“I mean,” cries Babs, “that I’m at my parents’ and I hear my mum yapping to Sheila about you having to go and work in a dry cleaners and not wanting to, when I thought it was all sorted, that you were all set up to be a freelance publicist. You’re very naughty! When we had that talk about—you know—marriage the other night, you didn’t say a word about it.”
I swallow. Think, Natalie, think. He can’t have told her. Frannie can’t have told her. This is my chance.
I open my mouth and the words that emerge are, “Well, the night we had that talk about, about marriage, was the night we, er, talked about marriage. I didn’t think it was right to be bringing up the subject of um, dry cleaners.”
Babs laughs. “So you’re not continuing with PR?”
“Half,” I say. “I’ll be writing a few press releases, that’s all—it doesn’t really amount to being a publicist. But I don’t mind. I’ve gone off it.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. I hadn’t thought.”
“I knew it!” cries Babs. “Frozen with indecision! So I thought of something you might like to do, for now, which wouldn’t pay that much but that would be more of a party than steaming shirts all day. Guess.”
“No idea,” I bleat. I wipe the liquid guilt off my forehead and wonder what the hell has happened to make her so chirpy. I thought she was on the brink of divorce?
“You could—and this is just a suggestion, yeah?—work at the deli!”
“Your parents’ deli?” I squeak. I’d have been less surprised if she’d suggested I join the Fire Brigade.
“No,” says Babs as the doubts breed. “Sainsbury’s deli.”
I can’t reply. Me, in a deli? That’s like asking a chicken to guard a fox! Good grief, it would be horrible! I’d be surrounded by food ten hours a day! And I can no longer trust myself to resist! I’ve lapsed! My will has wilted! I’m off the wagon! And I’d be working for Babs’s parents! They’d be urging me to eat constantly! I’d be a chick in the nest having worms poked down its throat! I might as well pack my bags and go straight to the clinic.
I say, “What a kind idea.”
Babs beams down the phone, I can hear it in her voice. “You really helped the other night. Sounding off to you was like therapy, I feel I’ve sorted my head out. I think Si felt the vibe. I think he sensed I’d called time. I didn’t even have to say anything. Get this—the last few days he’s gotten home on time, he bought me flowers, he cooked for me—he’s more cordon blecch than cordon bleu but who cares—and he sat down on the bed this morning and said he was sorry he’d gone AWOL but it was pressure at work and he knows he’s taken it out on me and he’s deeply sorry, he wants to do right by me. And—guess what—he’s taking me to Prague for the weekend! Prague! Tonight! For the weekend! We’re off to the airport in ten minutes!” Here her voice dips to a whisper:
“Si’s packing in the bedroom! I don’t actually believe him—about the pressure at work bit—but I…I feel optimistic. Like there’s a proper chance that we could work things out. Weird, isn’t it, that a relationship can become work?”
“In my experience,” I croak, “it’s work from the minute he spies you across the room and you sit up straight and hold your stomach in.”
Babs giggles and says, “No that’s just you, sweetheart. So what do you think?”
“I think it, mm, bodes well,” I say slowly, thinking, gosh, maybe I did (in the least desirable, most ham-fisted way possible) help her marriage.
“We still need to talk about the Captain Caveman problem,” she adds. “But all in good time.
As Dad says. God, I hate it when I find myself quoting my parents. Anyway, look, if you’re interested in helping out at the deli, the offer’s open, maybe call my mum over the weekend, you know what my parents are like—laid back isn’t the word—you could start next week if you want. But, no pressure, it’s just that you helped me out. I wanted to do the same for you. Anyway, look, I gotta go, we’ll speak, Nat. Ba!”
“Ba,” I say to thin air.
I walk unsteadily into the kitchen. “Failed again,” I announce to the kettle. The trouble with me is, I am not a good explainer. I’m so busy thinking “don’t say X” that I say it. So I suffer in silence because if I spoke up I’d suffer more. And so would Babs.
I’ve just started to sweep the kitchen floor—I feel better when the flat’s in order—and the doorbell rings. Like all good city girls, my Pavlovian reflex applies only to the phone. I distrust anyone who has the nerve to show up in person. I squint through the fish-eye and jump backward. What’s he doing here? Am I to be frogmarched to his sister and forced to confess? I make a rude face, briefly, to relieve tension, then paste on a smile and open the door.
“I forgot my iron,” declares Andy in a false bright voice, addressing the door frame. “I didn’t think you’d be home yet. I was going to get it and go. I also forgot to leave the keys.”
Stiffly, I hold open the door and, stiffly, he walks in. Clinique Chemistry, crumpled T-shirt, crumpled jeans. He did forget his iron. I can tell he wants to speak and I don’t want to hear it. So I blather, “I haven’t spoken to Babs yet, she actually just rang, I would have told her but she didn’t give me a chance. They’re off to Prague.” I want to add: Please don’t look at me like that.
Andy shoves his hands into his pockets. He looks as happy as an ant in a wasp’s nest.
Then he says, “I feel like a wiener, now I’ve spoken to Simon. I—”
“You spoke to Simon?” I cry, pleased that I am not alone in blurting out squirmworthy words at fretful moments. Wiener?—Hello, Mr. 1984!
“Yeah.” Andy removes his hands from his pockets and fiddles with a loose thread on his jeans. “What a tosser. I wanted to deck him.”
My eyebrows nearly shoot off my head.
“I didn’t, though,” he adds. “You know Babs. If she thinks he deserves a smack, she’ll deliver it herself.”
“Babs knows? But just now, she…she acted like—”
“No no no, Christ, I haven’t told Babs! Simon’s going to tell her.”
“When?” I resist the urge to scream: Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!
Andy sticks out his lower lip. “He said he’d tell her as soon as he got the chance. So tonight, I reckon, or over the weekend.”
He says every word like he doesn’t want to part with it. He has no idea of what constitutes the meat of a story. I feel like an inept zookeeper trying to make a chimp share a banana. I curl my fists to stop myself from shaking him. “And is he…will he”—I light a cigarette and drag deeply—“do you know what he’s planning to tell her about me?”
Andy replies, “He’s going to tell Babs that he leapt on a woman when he was drunk. He thinks it’d be better that way. I suppose it makes sense. Simon reckons that who he kissed is irrelevant.”
Men. I love it. “Irrelevant”!
“If”—Andy nods at me and makes an abortive attempt at a smile—“you want to tell Babs the rest, it’s your choice. Simon admits it was his fault. He said what happened—it sounded disgusting. He was disgusted with himself. And not just about the despicable way he’s treated Babs. You could have had him up for assault! He knows that.” Andy looks me in the eye for the first time. “I really feel bad about shouting at you, Natalie. I’m sorry. The way Frannie told it—it was a different story. I, well, it’s obvious, I didn’t forget the iron.”
I heave a huge, Pilates-enabled sigh of relief, and say graciously, “Not that obvious. Don’t worry about it. But do you think he—Simon—means it? Babs is going to be so…so hurt. It’s going to be torture for her.”
Andy sighs. “I don’t know. He told me he was committed. He said he was just scared of marriage. He’s going to be honest and hope she’ll let him start again. What can I say? He’s a scumbag, but I can’t get involved, more than I already have. I can’t make him behave, though I’d like to. It’s humiliating enough for her, as it is. They’ve got to sort it out between them. They’re adults.”
“Mm,” I say. “You’re right.”
There is a long silence, during which I think to myself, You’ve done enough meddling to put Scooby-Doo to shame—you’re lucky to have escaped intact. Now leave them to it.
I smile awkwardly at Andy, testing the idea that he’s no longer angry with me. I feel I should say something, but Andy speaks first.
“Oh yeah. The other day. When I was packing my things. This woman called round. Henrietta.”
I frown. “I don’t know anyone called Henrietta. What did she look like?”
Andy grins—a proper, eyes-involved grin. “Vey smart,” he says, in a clipped Home Counties tone. “Very jolly hockey sticks. Had a laugh like a seal. Sensible skirt, Burberry coat, pink jumper, and a brooch.”
“A brooch!” I boom in disbelief. “How old was this woman?”
Andy wrinkles his nose. “I don’t know—mid-thirties?”
“Mid-thirties? She sounds more like late fifties. She doesn’t sound like anyone I know. Not even a friend of my mother. Did she ask for me by name?”
Andy seems to be holding back a laugh. “No, actually, no,” he says. “But she did know you.”
“How?”
“You know her brother.”
“Really?”
“Apparently,” continues Andy, “he’s not very good at ringing home. ‘Mummy and Daddy get terribly concerned. And what with Daddy’s blood pressure it can all turn rather frightful. Fraightful.’ This was one of two addresses she had for him, she was in London for a craft fair, thought she’d surprise him.”
“Craft fair? And I know her brother? Are you sure she didn’t want the downstairs flat?”
“Nah,” says Andy, who patently finds my confusion hilarious. “Definitely this one.”
“Okay,” I say, knowing I’m being set up. “So this brother I’m supposed to know so well. What’s his name?”
Andy starts giggling. He giggles so hard it takes him a good minute to spit the words out.
“His name”—he sniggers, struggling for breath—“is Chris.”
“Chris?” I start to laugh myself. “Chris—Blue Veined Chris!?”
“Happily, I’ve no idea, but—yes!”
“But,” I choke, “but…but…Chris is…”
“Chris is ‘me old man worked down the mine, me mam’s a dinner lady, I’m a Manc, me, I’m workin’ class, do yeh want a sausage for yeh tea!’ ” booms Andy. “Or, to call him by his true and delightful given name”—Andy does a little chat-show tap dance as if to herald the entrance of a bright new star—“Crrrrispin!”
32
WE LAUGH, SELF-CONSCIOUSLY AT FIRST, THEN louder; it’s infectious, like chicken pox. We laugh until we’re laughing so hard, I feel it would be a pity to stop. Also, I don’t want to be the party pooper. I keep thinking of the high-ranking official at a Nazi rally who—after a twenty-minute standing ovation for Hitler—decided his palms were sore, enough was enough, and sat down. I’m not suggesting that if I cease cackling Andy will have me shot, but I don’t want to offend him.
Just as I’m starting to fret, Andy comes to my rescue: he shakes his head and grabs a chair, his laughter subsiding to a snigger, then a smirk. I breathe a secret sigh of relief, and join him at the table.
“Do you want a drink?” I say politely. “Or do you have to go?”
Andy hesitates. “Well, if you’ve got a minute, I’ll have a tea.”
“Minute?” I blurt without thinking. “I’ve got the whole darn night! I mean,” I correct hastily, “I’m not in a rush.”
To clear up every last morsel of misunde
rstanding, I gabble, “I met up with some friends from work today, I didn’t know how long we’d be out, so I didn’t plan anything. In the end, I got home before sex. Six! Sex! I mean, six! So when I say I’ve got the whole night, that’s what I meant.”
Shut up, says a sensible voice inside my head. I obey. I rush to the sink and fill up the kettle. Jesus Christ! Andy says nothing. As he lacks the social decorum to usher the conversation forward, I voice the first thought that wanders brainward, namely, “It’s funny how you and Babs are so British in your eating habits, despite your mum. Babs is hooked on tea as well, and you, ordering take-out pizza that time, it’s, it’s like mooning in the face of your roots!”
I turn round, to see Andy smiling at me. “Bella!” he cries in a cod-Italian accent. “What is it-a you want-eh? My mamma, she grow up in Italia, she taste da pizza at Pizza Hut, she say, ‘Oh my goodness! No please!’ but-a me and my sister, we live in-a Stanmore for all of our lives! We like-a da Twinings, we like-a da Eeenglish breakfast, we don wanna be call ‘Spaghetti’ by da children in school, eh!” Reverting to his normal voice, he says, “Italians drink tea too, Nat. If you haven’t planned to do anything tonight, does that mean you’re free?”
My hand jerks and a splash of boiling water spills onto the floor. “Oops. Yes, I am. Are, er, you?”
I brace myself for the biting retort, “No, Sad Girl, like most functioning young hipsters on a Friday night, I’m glamorously engaged, I was merely filling an awkward silence.”
“My evening is a void. What would you like to do? We could get something to eat”—Andy seems to recollect himself—“or not. We could go to the cinema, although that would be a waste, sitting in silence watching a big TV—or, I know, we could go to the Tate Modern—it’s been open for years and I still haven’t been and the longer I leave it, the more I feel ashamed. Like I’m less of a complete human being. Tea helps, though,” he adds, taking a sip.