Chapter Eleven
‘Gracious!’ exclaims Jewell, eyeing my bulging suitcases — borrowed from Ollie because by now I’m heartily sick of bin bags. ‘How long are you staying for? I’m all for us girls having our lovely things around us, but…’ she pauses when she notices that the checked hall floor is disappearing fast beneath my laptop, two winter coats and of course bloody Pinchy in his bucket, ‘isn’t this a little excessive for a weekend?’
She’s right. Elizabeth I probably took less with her when she went on progress round the land. But today I’m a woman with a mission and I’m leaving nothing to chance. My presence in Milford Road is going to be a hindrance to Ollie’s love life so I’ve figured it’s probably best I clear off to leave him and Vile Nina to it. And I know myself too well to have left stuff behind to collect later. That would be the emotional equivalent of picking at a scab.
I bend to stroke one of Jewell’s cats. ‘Actually, I was hoping to stay a bit longer than the weekend, if that’s OK with you, Auntie.’
‘Of course it is!’ Jewell nods and the green feathers on her turban bob enthusiastically. ‘I love having you youngsters to stay. We’ll have such fun being girls together. What do you call it nowadays? Sleepovers? We can paint our nails and give each other makeovers.’
Jewell wears lipstick the colour of clotted blood and draws her eyebrows on with a pencil.
‘Lovely,’ I say weakly.
‘Why don’t you pop all this lot,’ she sweeps her hand in the direction of my worldly goods, ‘up to your old room? And I’ll make us a lovely cup of tea.’
My old room is up in the attic, and by the time I’ve heaved all my stuff up there I’m sweating and possibly one dress size smaller. Gasping for air, I collapse on to my old bed and reflect sadly upon the harsh truth that I’m nearly thirty years old but right back to where I was when I was seven. It’s like I’ve been playing virtual-reality snakes and ladders and almost got to square one hundred — merchant-banker fiancé, nice flat in west London, a sort of social life — but I landed on the biggest snake and slithered right back down to square number one.
I know. I know. It’s really pathetic, but wouldn’t you be feeling just a teeny bit sorry for yourself too if you were me? And what am I going to do about Ollie and the fact that I owe him a small fortune for my medical treatment? Why didn’t I twig? He must think I’m so ungrateful.
Since that fateful evening at Milford Road, things have been decidedly awkward between Ollie and me. I thanked him for paying my medical bills, of course I did, and offered to pay it all back, but Ollie brushed me off.
‘I wanted to pay,’ he insisted, muscular back to me as he delved in the sink for a fork to shovel up his Madras. ‘No one forced me.’
‘It’s too much.’
‘Jesus!’ snapped Ollie to the washing-up pile. ‘It’s done, OK? Stop bloody harping on about it.’
‘But it must have cost a fortune.’ I knew this for a fact, having rummaged through the dustbins to find the gunky evidence, a disgusting job if ever there was one and enough to make me glad I’d chosen teaching over the more glamorous lure of journalism. Once I’d pulled some congealed Chinese from the bill, I discovered that I owed Ollie over fifteen hundred pounds, which may as well be fifteen million because I’m so broke. I’m utterly determined to pay him back, though God only knows how. Maybe I should ask Reverend Rich if Satan still buys souls.
‘Just forget it!’ Ollie yanked out a fork from underneath a pile of plates. Unfortunately this was the Milford Road equivalent of Ker-Plunk, and he had just pulled out the bottom straw. Plates and saucepans tumbled to the floor and shards of china exploded everywhere.
‘Bloody hell!’ roared Ollie, making me jump out of my skin. Laid-back way past horizontal, Ol never loses his temper, one of the reasons he’s such an excellent teacher. The kids learn quickly that nothing stresses Mr Burrows.
Apart from me, apparently.
It was safe to assume I’d seriously pissed him off.
‘Just stop going on about it,’ he growled, bending down to scoop up broken plates. ‘I don’t think you owe me anything in kind if that’s what you’re worried about. I’m not expecting you to offer me your body in gratitude.’
I shut up there and then, stung by the fury in his voice. In fact I more than shut up. I scuttled upstairs to my room, slammed the door and blubbed until you could have stuck me on a Christmas card and called me Rudolph. Then I called Jewell and asked if I could come and stay. Ollie stormed out of the house — presumably to Nina’s — and the rest you know.
My other headache is that James won’t give up. He’s sent endless letters of apology and I’m now on first-name terms with the man from Interflora. I’m the owner of helium balloons, Thorntons chocolates and, as of this morning, tickets for the Orient Express. James’s selective memory knows no bounds. I’m starting to think he’s totally unbalanced. After the way he’s behaved, does he really think I’ll forgive him? I’m determined not to go back to him. I’m never going to settle for second best again. So I’m sending all his latest gifts back, with a polite note telling him to bugger off, and hiding at Jewell’s until he gives up.
What a pity he never liked me this much when we were together.
Abandoning these gloomy thoughts, I check that Pinchy’s settled in to Jewell’s huge claw-foot bath and make my way back to the kitchen.
‘Mind Tabitha,’ trills my godmother when I nearly break my neck tripping over a cat lying in the doorway.
Tabitha gives me an evil yellow-eyed glare.
‘Sorry.’ I plop myself down at the big lime-washed oak table. As usual it’s covered with donkey’s years’ worth of assorted tat, ranging from bills and yellowing piles of newspaper, to the python’s tank and the odd snoozing cat. This looks chaotic but Jewell swears it’s the world’s most efficient filing cabinet.
She plonks a chipped brown teapot on top of TV Quick, obscuring Gabriel Winters’ cheesy grin. ‘Let’s have a nice cup of tea and you can tell me exactly why you’re here.’
‘What kind of tea is it?’ Jewell has been known to experiment with anything from nettles to cannabis. Apparently she once gave the vicar such terrible munchies he ate his entire stock of communion wafers. But that’s another story.
‘Only Earl Grey,’ she assures me, pouring pale amber liquid into two mugs and pushing one towards me. She settles back into her chair, scoops a cat on to her lap and peers at me over her half-moon glasses. ‘Now, either my eyesight is finally giving up the ghost or you have come to stay for a bit longer than the weekend.’
I stare sadly into my mug. ‘It’s all such a mess, Auntie. I’ve ruined everything.’
‘Nonsense,’ Jewell says briskly. ‘You youngsters don’t know the meaning of awful or terrible. There’s very little in life that can’t be fixed, darling, but sometimes it means swallowing our pride and admitting we’re wrong. In my experience these things are often a question of just how far one is prepared to go to make matters right.’
I pick a cat hair out of my drink. ‘I’m not afraid to admit I’ve messed up, but I think it might be a bit too late to make things right.’ And in between sips of scalding tea I tell her everything: how it’s over with James and how without meaning to I’ve trashed the best friendship I ever had. By the time I grind to a halt with this sorry tale I’m blubbing again and mopping my eyes with a tea towel.
‘So that’s it,’ I sniff as I end my epic tale of woe. ‘James has become a stalker, Ollie’s with Vile Nina and I’m totally on my own.’
Jewell strokes the cat. From the hall the old grandfather clock tick-tocks time away and in the distance a siren wails. In a patch of sunlight dust motes and pet hair drift idly towards earth.
‘Darling,’ she says eventually, just when I’m starting to wonder if she’s heard a single word I’ve said, ‘what do you want?’
‘Sorry?’
‘What do you want to do?’
I’m a bit cheesed off at this. I thought I’
d made it perfectly clear to her exactly what I want. ‘I just want James to—’
‘No, Katy!’ Jewell’s bony hand shoots across the table and grabs mine. The papery skin and ink-blue veins conceal a surprising strength and I wince as her diamond rings dig into my fingers. ‘Listen to the question! I want to know what you want, Katy, you! Not James or Ollie or any of the other young men that you’ve devoted yourself to. What are your hopes and dreams? What do you want more than anything else?’
Her eyes bore into mine.
‘What do you want from life, my darling? What makes you happy? All you’ve told me is what you can do to make other people happy. What do you want for yourself?’
Somebody has crept past and nicked my vocal cords, because I can’t speak. To be honest, after all the years of being with James, pretending to like oysters when actually they taste of snot, having to read The Times when secretly hankering after Heat! magazine and keeping my home as a minimalistic shrine to his good taste, I’m not really sure what I like or what makes me happy. I only know that hanging out with Ollie used to bring me pretty close to what I think happiness must feel like, and… blimey! Jewell is right. There I go again, judging my happiness in terms of the men in my life.
‘You,’ continues Jewell with all the subtlety of a rhino galumphing over eggshells, ‘have based your entire sense of self, happiness and personal fulfilment on making the man in your life happy. You have totally subjugated your own wants and tastes and needs. You have become a casualty of patriarchy.’
Did I mention that Jewell was a militant feminist back in the Seventies? She claims to have taught Germaine all she knows (‘Although the fuss she made in Big Brother, darling! Honestly, after Greenham Common you think she’d have appreciated the luxury!’).
‘Isn’t that what you do when you’re in love? Put the other person first?’
‘Not to the extent of erasing your entire personality. Think about the last few years, darling. What did you ever do that was actually what you wanted? Even your own wedding was James’s taste.’
I take a huge gulp of tea. Jewell’s words are making half-buried fears take shape in my mind that slowly loom, like figures in the mist, closer and clearer.
I’m starting to feel embarrassed about the person I become when I’m in a relationship. It’s as though the minute I’m with a man, I instinctively put him first and me second. I start to make gaps in my own social life just in case he might call with plans, afraid that if I’m unavailable for just one evening it will make me a crap girlfriend and give him justification for moving on elsewhere, somewhere taller and thinner and considerably less ginger. I put everything into his well-being while my own interests and friends recede into the background until even I can hardly remember the hopes and dreams that used to drive me. Eventually all that’s left is a pathetic need to please and keep the attention of whatever man is kind enough to chuck a few crumbs of attention at me. All I need is a frilly gingham frock, because I appear to have perfected the 1950s housewife thing.
Hmm. I think I may have a few self-esteem issues.
The more I think about my distinctly sappy behaviour, the more I start to feel very disillusioned, because where exactly has all this self-sacrifice got me? Did James appreciate the laying down of my entire identity or did he think I was a total doormat, only just stopping short of scrawling ‘Welcome’ on my forehead and wiping his feet on me?
I think we all know the answer to that question.
‘I’m so stupid,’ I groan.
‘Darling, you are not!’ exclaims Jewell. ‘You are a lovely, giving girl with a generous heart that some less scrupulous types try to take advantage of. Besides,’ she continues, warming to her theme, ‘I think your parents ought to shoulder a little of the blame for your emotional neediness. Super people as Quentin and Drusilla are, they’ve made the most appalling parents. No wonder you’re looking for a relationship to provide you with emotional stability after spending your formative years with them.’
She pauses, and I know we are both thinking about that frosty December morning when my parents decided they simply had to go to Morocco and left me and Holly on Jewell’s doorstep with a hastily scribbled note asking her to look after us for a bit. For the next six months I convinced myself that if I’d been a prettier daughter, better behaved, not complained that Mum’s Afghan coat stank, eaten mung beans without moaning and basically done everything they had wanted, then they wouldn’t have gone. I was convinced that somehow their desire to abandon their two daughters and bum round Asia smoking hash and aligning their chakras was my fault for not being exactly the way they wanted.
I don’t need to be Freud to work out where all this is leading.
‘But never mind them now,’ says Jewell. ‘It’s not really a question of apportioning blame. It’s more a question of where you go from here. Maybe look on this as an opportunity for change and to move on. You gave James some of your best years, so why don’t you take some time out for yourself? You’ve had a really lucky escape with your health too. Maybe Fate’s trying to tell you something?’
My hand strays to the small dressing on my breast. I feel drunk with relief when I think about what could have happened and guilty that I’m sitting around grizzling about my rubbish love life when I should be thanking my lucky stars.
‘None of us knows how much time we have,’ Jewell sighs, reaching out to pat my hand. ‘We owe it to ourselves to make the most of every minute of every day.’
She looks so wistful and so sad when she says this that a jolt of fear runs through me. If this was a soap opera she’d tell me now that she only has weeks to live and make me swear to go out and party for her. But luckily this is real life. Jewell says nothing of the kind but fixes me instead with a mega-watt smile and the moment passes.
‘Gracious! How maudlin!’ Letting go of my hand, she struggles out of her seat and walks stiffly to one of the kitchen cupboards. Immediately a furry sea of animals flows around her ankles, followed by a loud purring when she opens four cans of Whiskas and forks it into an assortment of bowls. I help myself to a fig roll and munch thoughtfully. Am I too reliant on men? Am I incapable of existing on my own?
I sincerely hope not or I’m screwed.
What do I really want from life?
And then suddenly I know. It’s so bloody obvious that I laugh out loud. I know exactly what I want to do. I’ve always known. And Auntie Jewell will approve because it has nothing to do with finding a man.
Well, indirectly maybe, but not a real one.
‘I want to write!’ I cry. ‘I want to see if I really can do it. I’d like to go away from London and stomp across the moors and walk in the rain. I want to have the chance just to see if I could be a real writer.’
Or find out if my stories really are pathetic drivel written by a teacher in a shitty sink school, as I seem to recall James so charmingly putting it. I’d like some time out to dedicate to handsome highwaymen and passionate pirates.
Jewell claps her hands. ‘That’s the spirit! And that’s what you shall do!’
‘Yeah, in my dreams. What about the practicalities? Where would I live? How would I live? How will I pay my credit-card bills?’
This last one is an increasing worry. My bills — which I would like to point out were run up by James in my name — are starting to make Everest look like an anthill.
‘Money? Pah!’ Jewell lobs the empty cans in the bin. ‘That shouldn’t come between you and your dreams. Hand your notice in at work, move in here for a while and play it by ear. Or go and visit lovely Maddy in Cornwall. As for those bills…’ she rummages in an enormous handbag and plucks out a Coutts chequebook, ‘let me be your fairy godmother. I’ll pay off all those hideous credit cards so you can concentrate on your writing, and before you protest,’ she adds quickly, seeing my mouth fall open, ‘I will expect every penny paid back when you have your first advance. In fact I may even demand a percentage of your sales. You can’t say fairer than that, darling.
Anyway, think what I’m saving on a wedding present.’
‘Auntie, I can’t borrow your money. And I certainly can’t live off you.’
She gives me a beady look. ‘You’ll still need a little part-time job, darling; I’m not that wealthy. But I’d much rather give it to you than lend more to James.’
‘You’ve lent James more money?’ My chin is almost in the wine cellar.
Jewell nods. ‘A thousand here and a thousand there, cash-flow problems he said, but darling, I was starting to wonder what was going on. Don’t think I didn’t notice him eyeing up my house too, trying to estimate the real estate. He had pound signs in his eyes. He’s far too much like his mother in that respect. I’m very fond of James, darling, and I was delighted when you bumped into him again, but I do wonder about his motives sometimes.’
There’s not much I can say to this because I’m starting to wonder myself. I feel really ashamed of James and even more ashamed of myself for not seeing through him. Love wasn’t so much blind in my case as deaf and dumb to boot.
‘But James earns tons of money,’ I point out. ‘Why would he need to borrow from you?’
Jewell shrugs. ‘I’ve no idea, darling, but Cordelia always did have expensive tastes. Maybe that rubbed off on James.’
I think of the bespoke shoes and Turnbull and Asser shirts that graced his half of the wardrobe, whereas I was practically best mates with George at Asda.
Yes, I think we can safely say James likes the finer things in life. Paying for them, though, seems to be another matter entirely.
‘Never mind him, anyway, he’s history,’ says Jewell firmly. ‘It’s time you moved on, darling. Fetch some Moët out of the fridge and let’s toast your new start as a romantic novelist!’
Experience has taught me that once Jewell’s got a bee in her bonnet, there’s no point trying to stop her. Canute probably found it easier to turn back the tide.
Jewell pops the cork, fills the glasses and then holds up her champagne flute. ‘To Katy Carter, her new career and a new romantic hero!’
Katy Carter Wants a Hero Page 16