When they were seated, Connie stared at Michelle over the top of her menu. ‘I had heard that male nannies were becoming fashionable. But, personally, I don’t know if I could do it.’
‘Why not?’
‘Oh, well,’ Connie was uncomfortable. ‘You know. Men around children …’
What is it with well-to-do Americans? wondered Michelle. Have they all been sucked in by Republican propaganda, or is the fact that not all unmarried men are latent paedophiles too incredible for them to comprehend?
‘Is he—?’ Connie rethought her question. ‘What nanny bureau did he come through?’
‘Benedict’s English,’ said Michelle. Legal training did come in handy when you wanted to only appear to answer a question.
‘Oh!’ Connie seemed relieved. ‘An English nanny.’
I should tell her he’s black, Michelle thought. That would destroy her completely. Fortunately the waiter arrived to take their order.
‘I’ll have the Caesar salad,’ said Connie. ‘But no croutons or Parmesan. And can you put the dressing on the side?’
The menu had already given Michelle a clue as to why Connie had chosen this restaurant: it had a calorie value against every item. Connie’s request had brought the Caesar salad down from over 700 calories to, by Michelle’s reckoning, about 250.
For Pete’s sake, thought Michelle. Why doesn’t she hold the lettuce too, and have them simply bring her an empty plate?
‘I’ll have the 900-calorie steak and fries,’ said Michelle. She was tempted to add: and a glass of red wine. But the memory of a stained tablecloth still made her burn with humiliation.
‘You’re so lucky,’ said Connie. ‘You don’t have to worry about what you eat.’
Michelle suspected a hidden insult, but couldn’t see anything other than apparently genuine admiration in Connie’s face.
‘Neither do you,’ she said. ‘You’re a stick.’
‘Oh!’ Connie blushed and dropped her gaze. ‘No, I do! If I don’t keep strict control of what I eat, I just balloon.’
‘I’ve already ballooned,’ Michelle informed her. ‘And, yes, part of me cares. But the rest of me couldn’t give a flying fuck. Life’s too short not to enjoy food. And I’ll work it off in time.’ She tilted her head. ‘Probably.’
Connie was frowning. ‘Does your husband, does Chad—?’
‘Make remarks about my fat arse?’
‘Oh! Well …’
Mentally, Michelle shook her head. So Phil makes comments about his wife’s weight. What an almighty douchebag.
‘No, he doesn’t,’ she told Connie. ‘I mean, if I suddenly put on 200 pounds, he’d probably express some mild concern. But on the whole, he doesn’t give a rat’s butthole if I’m a bit of a chubbo.’
At least, she thought he didn’t. But she refused to contemplate that her weight had played any part in his decision to bugger off. She knew if she started down tracks like that, she would descend into becoming a suspicious, crazy-minded cow who detected lies and ulterior motives in everything he said. Likewise, she intended to avoid any track that led to a sentence containing the words ‘other woman’. Therein lay madness, Michelle had decided, and she was having enough trouble trying to hold it together as it was.
Connie was staring. Then, to Michelle’s surprise, she laughed.
‘You know something?’ she said. ‘After that dinner, where you — you know?’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ Michelle wrinkled her face. ‘The horror is still vividly present.’
‘Well, I had lunch with the other wives,’ Connie went on, ‘and you were all we could talk about.’
I’ll bet, thought Michelle bitterly. Bitchface and Baboon would have relished the opportunity to brandish their talons.
‘I was listening to them, which is what I usually do.’ Connie made a small grimace. ‘And I realised something. It was so obvious, I wondered why I hadn’t spotted it right away.’
Michelle was agog. ‘What?’ she said. ‘What did you spot?’
‘They envied you,’ Connie replied. ‘They envied the way you — well, the way you did and said just what you pleased. The way you refused to give a — what was that phrase you just used? A rat’s butthole?’ Connie smiled shyly. ‘And you know what else I realised?’
Mutely, Michelle shook her head.
Connie smoothed the napkin on her lap. ‘I envied you, too.’
Michelle became aware her mouth was open, and hastily shut it. She stared at Connie, at her carefully, tastefully arranged blonde hair, her careful, tasteful choice of make-up and clothes — and realised she had been looking at all the wrong things. She should have taken more notice of what she was doing, Michelle thought. Trying to make conversation with her that night at the dreaded dinner — none of the other wives did. Saying ‘yes’ to lunch with her today. She should have spotted there was a need there. But then, she conceded, her track record of spotting people in need hadn’t exactly been stellar, nor of responding to them when they’ve expressed it. Michelle’s track record with people in need, let’s be frank, had been shithouse.
How could she help Connie, then? Michelle wondered. Would it be as easy as offering to be friends?
On the downside, Connie was a woman who rated a day good or bad depending on whether or not the taps had been cleaned all the way round. However, after this weekend, Michelle would not see her husband for a month, and her best friend — her only real, close friend — might never speak to her again. True, she now had Aishe, but friendship with her was rather like stroking a temperamental cat: one minute it’s purring, the next it’s turning your hand into pastrami. So on the upside, Connie had the advantages of being both available and submissive. Michelle felt she could easily ensure that taps never again entered their conversation.
‘Seriously, though,’ Michelle had to ask. ‘You don’t really want to be a fat loudmouth, do you?’
‘Well, no,’ said Connie. ‘Perhaps not that exact description. But I’d quite like not to worry so much about what people think of me.’
The waiter arrived and placed their plates in front of them. Both women looked briefly down at the food and then back up at each other.
‘I have no advice for you,’ said Michelle. ‘Other than to say that the choice to worry or not to worry is entirely yours.’
‘Oh, I know that,’ Connie replied lightly. ‘The difficulty comes with shifting habits that have been ingrained in you since birth.’
‘Oh, boy,’ said Michelle. ‘You said it, sister. Shake up that status quo and God knows what hell you might unleash.’
And what demons you might then have to battle, she added in her mind. Was that what Chad was planning on doing now — battling demons? What kind were they? she wondered. And what would happen if he lost?
Her attention was drawn back to Connie, who had the jug of salad dressing suspended in mid-air over her plate.
‘Perhaps I should start small?’ she said, and proceeded to pour a lavish amount of dressing all over her salad.
‘Good call.’ Michelle picked up her own plate and held it out. ‘Have a fry.’
17
‘Tell me about your father.’
Aishe and Benedict were in her bed. Benedict wasn’t usually around on Sundays for the simple reason that Gulliver usually was. But Gulliver’s band was giving a concert in six weeks, and Sunday afternoon was now their agreed time for rehearsals. Aishe had known this for a while, but had failed to mention it to Benedict. Still, she wasn’t surprised when he turned up at the door. Gulliver and Benedict talked a lot, in an easy, companionable way that she couldn’t help but find irksome. At first, she’d panicked that Gulliver might divulge personal information about her, until she realised that he knew practically nothing. But then it occurred to her that the posh git was unlikely to be so reticent, which meant her son probably knew more about the man she was sleeping with than she did. Reluctantly, Aishe decided that if intimacy were to be plausibly feigned, she’d have to make more of an
effort. She had an inkling that people demonstrated interest in others by asking questions. So she’d asked one.
‘My father?’
Benedict sounded convinced that he’d heard wrong. Fair enough, thought Aishe. Up until now, small talk had been notable by its absence. Usually, the only words spoken were by her, and consisted almost entirely of ‘There!’, ‘Faster!’ and ‘Now!’.
Aishe had never had the patience to let men find their own way in lovemaking. ‘Take charge from the start’ was her motto. If they couldn’t work it out, she felt, why should she suffer? But she had to concede that the orders she barked at Benedict were mostly for show. He was the one in charge here. The only other man to have flipped that balance of power in the sack was—
‘I’ll tell you about my father if you tell me about Frank.’
Aishe sat bolt upright. ‘No way.’
Benedict laughed. ‘It’s like touching a match to a fuse. Every time. Boom!’
He reached out a finger and idly stroked the underside of her breast, causing Aishe to seethe with desire as well as rage.
‘Is he such a sore point with you because you were fond of him?’ Benedict went on. ‘Because I can assure you it’s not that way with my father.’
Goddamnit! Aishe was finding the struggle almost beyond her. For so many years, she’d relied on the twin protective strategies of blistering, full-frontal attack and an impenetrable cast-iron shell. If the attack did not deter the invaders, the shell would keep them at bay. No one in. No one out. Except Gulliver who, the minute he was placed bloody and squalling in her arms, blasted the shell to smithereens.
And Frank. Frank’s secret was that, initially, he had not seemed like a threat. When Aishe had realised how far he’d advanced she’d thrown everything she had at him. He’d taken it all and absorbed it like a lightning rod, like Zeus catching a thunderbolt. And then he’d kept on coming.
Aishe’s struggle was that she abhorred the thought of Benedict getting any closer. But if she did not give him an inch, then the mile he’d take would be in the direction of away. And if he went, so might Gulliver, at least in spirit. The risk was simply too great.
That said, some delay was better than none.
‘You first,’ she said.
Suspecting a ploy, Benedict raised an eyebrow. But he said, ‘All right.’
He placed his palms on the bed and pulled himself up to sit beside her. Then he blew out a breath. ‘Well. Where to begin?’
‘Is he a psycho?’ suggested Aishe helpfully. ‘Or just a c***?’
Benedict laughed. ‘He is who he is,’ he replied. ‘But he’s not who I will ever be.’ Seeing Aishe found this answer to be in all ways deficient, he went on. ‘My father is a criminal.’
Aishe gave a sceptical snort. ‘What did he do? Embezzle the country club funds?’
‘Not exactly,’ Benedict replied. ‘He started by robbing the mail train from Aberdeen, and then moved on to drugs, guns and extortion.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘You can Google him if you like. His name’s Reginald Hardy. He was born in Liverpool to a dockworker and his wife. I never knew my grandparents — both died before I was born. The family moved to Glasgow to get work on the Clyde when my father was ten. He got into petty crime pretty much immediately, dropped out of school at fourteen, and at seventeen robbed the mail train. On his own.’
‘Bullshit.’ But Aishe sounded less convinced.
Benedict gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Google him.’
‘Right.’ Aishe slid out of bed. ‘I bloody will.’
‘I’ll wait here,’ Benedict told her. ‘None of it’s news to me.’
Fifteen minutes later, Aishe slid back into bed.
‘There’s a picture of you with him,’ she said. ‘At your school prizegiving.’
‘I know.’
‘How come he hasn’t spent more time in jail? A year for tax evasion’s hardly a deterrent.’
‘Because he’s cunning and evil. Everything you read online is fact but none of it’s ever been proven. Lack of evidence — and witnesses. He was superb at getting rid of both. And by the time I was born, he had enough legitimate money to not have to live in the shadows all the time.’
‘How could it be legitimate?’ said Aishe.
‘Sanitised through sound investments,’ Benedict replied. ‘A little bit of dirty money goes in, but the returns are all clean. And those returns go into more investments.’
‘Investments such as?’
‘Property, mainly.’
‘Oh.’ Aishe was quiet for a moment. ‘I have a cousin who’s a property investor.’
‘Is he also a cunning, evil criminal?’
‘Not that I’m aware. But then, we’ve sort of lost touch …’
She turned and scrutinised Benedict’s face. ‘You look like your father. Only about a third of the size.’
‘I know. One of God’s better jokes.’
Aishe was quiet for a moment more. Then she frowned. ‘Why is he chasing you? You’re twenty-nine, not fifteen.’
The lopsided smile returned. ‘Because he would sooner die than lose.’
‘Explain.’
The wind appeared to have gone from Aishe’s sails. Benedict took a risk.
‘Promise to tell me about Frank?’
Aishe gave a quick nod. Benedict settled back against the head of the bed and decided how best to begin.
‘My father has never lost at anything in his life. Over the years, people challenged him, certainly. But none of them stayed alive long.’
‘You know this for a fact?’
‘A small boy can slip into many places unnoticed,’ he said, ‘and even when they knew I was there, they knew I was his son.’
‘His heir,’ murmured Aishe.
‘Exactly.’
‘But Daddy’s footsteps weren’t attractive.’
‘If I’d been another kind of person, then perhaps. But I liked music, and books, and school. I loved school. I excelled. It’s probably what saved me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘At school I was a winner. And I made my father a winner. Through me, he won victories in areas he could never have hoped to conquer — academic and, in particular, social. He sent me to boarding school from the age of ten. I was soon speaking like this, and making friends with the sons of aristocrats.’
Aishe snorted. ‘Bet they still thought your dad was common as muck.’
‘Of course,’ Benedict said. ‘But he had money and he liked to spend it. We had a huge house with all kinds of toys and temptations. You know most English aristocrats are stony broke, so they were more than happy to accept my father’s hospitality. And you must understand that my father is also highly charismatic. After a while, I think most of our guests forgot that they were supposed to look down on him.’
Aishe thought of her own upbringing. The Hernes weren’t dirt poor, but there was little money to spare. Every child knew that if they wanted something beyond the basics, then they’d have to work for it. And they did, thought Aishe. They were taught to be entirely self-reliant. But at the same time, they always had the family to come back to. They knew that was where they’d always be safe. Well, when her dad was alive, anyway. ‘Were you unhappy growing up?’ she said.
The question seemed to surprise Benedict. ‘I was an only child. My mother was — is — a decent enough person, and I think my father was genuinely fond of her. He certainly treated her well. But he also made sure she put him first. She always had to put him before me. Which meant most of the time I was left to my own devices. I didn’t mind that. I preferred it. It alleviated the constant pressure of being my father’s son.’
‘What do you mean pressure? Pressure to grow up like him — to be like him?’
Benedict offered a sad smile. ‘You can imagine I wasn’t exactly all he had hoped for. When I was little, I was everything he despised — bookish, timid, puny. In fact, there was a moment—’ He paused and slid her a look. ‘You
’ll think I’m overreacting, but there was a moment when I truly believe he had decided that I had to go.’
‘What? Oh, get real!’
‘I told you,’ said Benedict. ‘I was ten — the same age as he was when he went into crime. He came up to my bedroom. I was reading. He pushed a finger against the cover of the book to see the title. It was The Last Battle, the final Narnia book. “Who wins?” he asked me. I could hardly say, “Some children and a whole bunch of magical creatures”, so I replied, “The good guys.” He nodded, which relieved me no end. But then he said, “Come with me.”
‘There were some woods near the house. They weren’t particularly attractive, all dank and dark and twisted. He led me in there. As we walked, I could hear what I thought was whimpering. It got louder, and when we reached a patchy sort of clearing, I could see that in the middle, hunched on the ground, there was a mongrel dog.’
Aishe drew in a sharp breath. ‘If this is going to end badly for the dog, I don’t want to hear it.’
Benedict gave her a pained look. ‘What if it ended badly for me?’
‘You’re right here,’ she pointed out. ‘Breathing. Intact. Though that may be at risk if you did something to that poor dog.’
‘It was caught in an ancient gin trap,’ Benedict continued after a pointed pause. ‘It was in a very bad way. I’ll spare you the details — suffice it to say it had tried to bite its way free. My father said, “The trap can’t be opened. It’s too old, too rusted. So what would you do?” I had learned to be cautious, so I asked, “What are my choices?” He drew a handgun out from his jacket pocket and said, “Here’s one.”’
‘That would have been humane if you’d done it right,’ said Aishe.
‘I was ten!’ Benedict protested. ‘I’d never even held a gun, let alone fired one. The chances of me killing it first shot were, to say the least, slim.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I saw that the gin trap wasn’t that firmly anchored, and I thought for one crazy moment that I’d be able to pull it out of the ground, and carry it and the dog out of the woods. But the dog was maddened by pain. As soon as I took a step near, it lunged and snarled at me. I turned back and saw my father smiling, offering me the gun. So what I did was this: I took to my heels and ran.’
The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence Page 15