The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence

by Catherine Robertson

  Oh well, he thought. Aren’t I fortunate that dreams are free?

  Michelle opened her door to Aishe and ushered her in. Held to Michelle’s ear was the phone receiver, through which Aishe could hear a distant squawking. The person making the noise appeared to not be drawing breath.

  ‘Sorry,’ Michelle mouthed. ‘Mother-in-law.’

  She beckoned for Aishe to follow her down to the kitchen.

  ‘Yes, but—’ Michelle attempted. She tried again. ‘Look, I really don’t—’

  Aishe took it upon herself to pull out a chair. Michelle clamped the phone between her shoulder and her ear so she could free both hands to chop carrot sticks. Rosie was in her highchair, smacking the back end of a plastic spoon onto yoghurt in a bowl. Aishe gauged the distance of the splashes and moved her chair half a foot to the left.

  ‘Virginia, Jesus!’ Michelle stood bolt upright, knife poised in her hand as if she were about to throw it. ‘You need to call a shrink. Seriously! That is not normal. I mean, the rest of his behaviour hasn’t exactly been top of the sane charts, but that? That is straitjacket territory.’

  Aishe could hear the squawking on the other end of the phone wind up like a circular saw cutting through metal. Michelle turned around and leaned against the bench. She was holding the knife flat across her chest now, reminding Aishe of old engravings of Joan of Arc.

  Aishe pointedly tapped her watch. Michelle nodded.

  ‘Virginia!’ she said. ‘I have to go. No, I— Yes, I—’

  Down the hall, Aishe heard the front door open and shut. A minute later, in walked one of the most handsome men Aishe had ever seen. There were photographs of him around Michelle’s house but in no way did their two dimensions do him justice. He had the sort of glowing blondness and robust physique that cast him instantly as the hero of some epic poem, in which he would split his time evenly between wassailing and dismembering. Aishe mentally swapped his Brooks Brothers suit for chainmail and a beaten iron helmet topped with horns, and his briefcase for the kind of double-headed battleaxe that goes ‘zinggg’ when it’s swung.

  Chad dumped the briefcase on the floor and glanced between his wife, Aishe and his daughter, who gave a happy shriek and renewed her attack on the yogurt with extra vigour.

  ‘Hi,’ he said with a certain wariness.

  Michelle pointed the knife at him and glared.

  ‘About bloody time!’ She spoke into the phone. ‘Virginia. Your son is here.’

  And she shoved the phone towards her husband, who instantly lifted both hands into the ‘no way’ position.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ Michelle now had the phone upright in one hand and the knife in the other, as if she was about to carve a roast. ‘Talk to her, goddamnit!’

  Slowly, one eye on the knife, Chad reached out for the phone. He turned away from Michelle and Aishe and lowered his voice. ‘Mom,’ he said. ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m going now,’ Michelle said loudly to his averted back. ‘Harry’s watching television, and needs dinner. Rosie needs — Well,’ she said, as she and Aishe left the kitchen, ‘you’ll figure it out.’

  ‘Will he?’ said Aishe, when they’d reached her car.

  ‘Who cares?’ Michelle shrugged and slammed the Rabbit’s door so hard Aishe made a mental note to check the hinges.

  ‘Father-in-law playing up again?’ Aishe said after a few minutes in which it became clear Michelle was going to do nothing but silently stew.

  Aishe knew about Lowell’s retreat to his study and the compulsive pulse hoarding, and was quite curious to find out what he was doing that could be worse. Exposing himself at children’s playgrounds came to mind, along with taking a dump in the showroom at a bathroom store. And then there was the possibility of him developing a fetish for women’s underwear, which would give the arrival in the mailbox of the Victoria’s Secret catalogue a whole new piquancy.

  ‘He’s building a Viking longboat,’ said Michelle. ‘In the garage.’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘When he dies, he wants his body placed in it, and the whole thing set on fire and sent out to sea.’

  ‘Does he have any Norse blood in him?’ said Aishe. ‘Chad looks as though he could.’

  ‘None,’ said Michelle. ‘The Lawrences are stolidly Anglo-Saxon. No, he got the idea from a Burt Lancaster movie that he watched when he was holed up in his study.’

  ‘Well, on the plus side, he’s come out of his cave.’

  ‘Only to lathe dowels and mitre joints,’ said Michelle. ‘By night, he’s still bunking down on the Chesterfield, surrounded by the aroma of crusted old man jockey-shorts and stale bean fart.’

  ‘You know,’ said Aishe, after a moment, ‘building a coffin for your own Viking cremation is actually pretty cool.’

  ‘Cool?’ Michelle stared. ‘It’s bonkers!’

  ‘But bold bonkers,’ said Aishe. ‘Iconoclastic.’

  ‘Personally,’ said Michelle, ‘I think it’s yet more evidence of the latent character flaw in the Lawrence men. They attach themselves to an insane goal and then, despite the obvious cost to their nearest and dearest, pursue it come hell, high water or the fire risk from flaming ancient vessels.’

  ‘Better than having no plan at all,’ said Aishe. ‘Unless you’re in love with the status quo.’

  It was probably fortunate that Michelle had no more to say, because Aishe stopped paying attention the instant they pulled up to the parking lot of the local hall, the venue for Gulliver’s concert. Her mind was now focused entirely on the minefield that was the evening ahead and how she intended to negotiate it.

  In her mind, she pictured herself with a combination of cool dignity and blatant sex appeal. It would not be Izzy who drew every male eye, but Aishe. But she wouldn’t play to it. Rather, she would hold herself aloof, which was likely to warn off everyone except Eddie. With Eddie, the best tactic would be to wait for the moment when a suggestive comment was forming on his lips, then grind the pointed heel of her boot into his interphalangeal joint.

  However, she found that even the faintest image of Benedict and Izzy together, no matter how quickly she banished it from her mind, triggered a writhing mass of emotions that were conducive neither to dignity nor detachment. It was beyond Aishe’s ability and inclination to try to unravel the emotional strands and identify the cause and nature of each. Instead, she grabbed each one as it appeared, Hydra-like, throttled it and stuffed it back down.

  As she did, she laid all the blame on Benedict. If he hadn’t been around, she would never have worried about him coming between her and Gulliver. If he’d been terrible in bed, she would never have cared when he left it. If he’d been less spineless, shiftless and worthless, she might have bothered to make more of an effort to keep him. It was his fault that her plan to control him hadn’t worked. It was his fault that she now felt rejected, powerless and vulnerable.

  That’s a lie, said the voice in her head. You feel that way because you know loss is inevitable, no matter how much you fight to stave it off. Which means that, above all, you feel very, very afraid.

  If you hadn’t left me, Aishe hurled the thought back, I would never have deluded myself that feeling safe was an option. I knew it wasn’t — I knew people I loved would always go — but you tricked me into thinking otherwise. If I feel more afraid now than I used to, that’s your fault.

  This mental argy-bargy had been slamming to and fro in Aishe’s head for days, but with the concert imminent, its noise and intensity had increased tenfold. That morning, two customers had complained to the truck-stop café manager about her rudeness. Fortunately, he had just found a better-paid job running the local liquor mart, so he made apologies on Aishe’s behalf, offered them free coffee and forgot about it.

  Aishe had not been so lucky at the shelter. Since that afternoon when they’d driven back with Blackie, Aishe had been making a sincere effort to at least think more kindly of customers. She had not offered again to adopt Blackie; she sensed that Nico was reluctant
to say yes, and she was reluctant to be rejected. The dog had soon gone to a local family who seemed practical and responsible and whose two kids, aged ten and eight, obviously adored their new pet. Aishe watched them all bundle into an older-model stationwagon and felt a sharp, unexpected pang of regret, as if she had lost something that she had become aware of only through its absence. Nico was speaking to her courteously enough, but Aishe knew he was keeping his distance. She did not try to apologise to him, mainly because she wasn’t sure she deserved his forgiveness. Instead she tried hard to demonstrate more tolerance with the customers, even those who had no clue what it meant to own a pet. If their hearts were in the right place, Aishe did her best to believe, there’s no reason why their heads can’t get there, too.

  But the laws of thermodynamics state that energy cannot be destroyed but only shifted from one form to another. In Aishe’s case, her attention shifted from customers to a fresh set of morons, otherwise known as her colleagues. There was one in particular: the new girl, who went by the ridiculous name of Aja, and who thought it was ‘so cute’ that her name and Aishe’s were ‘like, so similar!’

  ‘Did your parents name you after a Steely Dan album?’ Aishe had asked in disbelief.

  Aja had gazed at her. ‘Who’s Steely Dan?’ she’d said.

  Aja was twenty years old and taking a gap year before going to college to study zoology. She had, as one of the fat cows at the front desk had made a point of saying to Aishe, ‘a real knack with animals. And with people, too. Doesn’t everyone just love her?’

  Aja did not wear elastic-waisted trousers, but very tight jeans. She was slim but full-breasted, beautiful and blonde. She didn’t look exactly like Izzy, but she was out of the same mould. Aishe fucking hated her.

  Nico had called her into his office that morning. ‘Aishe,’ he’d said, without preamble. ‘Lay off Aja.’

  Aishe had bristled. ‘What has she told you?’

  ‘She has told me nothing,’ Nico had said. ‘It’s everyone else who’s concerned.’

  Vindictive, stretch-panted bovines, Aishe had thought. They’ve been seizing every opportunity to stick the knife in me from day one. But all she’d done was fold her arms and say, ‘Fine.’

  Nico had given her a long look. ‘If this wasn’t second-hand — if I’d had an official complaint from Aja — I’d fire you on the spot. You do know that?’

  Only a feeling that she still owed Nico had prompted Aishe to nod and look down instead of staring coolly back at him.

  ‘No more chances, Aishe,’ Nico had said. ‘Not one.’

  And he’d pulled a piece of paper from his in-tray and turned his attention to that …

  ‘Are we going in?’ Aishe heard Michelle say, ‘or are you picturing the French chateau you’ll buy when Gulliver earns his millions as a rock star?’

  ‘The only rock musicians I knew had to sell items of clothing in order to eat,’ said Aishe. ‘It’s like that joke: what do you call a drummer without a girlfriend?’

  Michelle shook her head.

  ‘Homeless,’ said Aishe.

  She opened the car door. ‘Come on,’ she said to Michelle. ‘If I do nothing else right tonight, I’m going to make sure I clap embarrassingly loudly.’

  36

  ‘Whoa, it’s packed!’ said Michelle.

  Aishe saw she was right and felt a tiny stab of fear for Gulliver. I hope he plays well, she thought. I hope he doesn’t let nerves get to him.

  Eddie was on the ticket desk. Aishe braced herself for a leer and a suggestive aside, but he was businesslike, taking their tickets with only a quick smile and a nod. Aishe was relieved, yet found his response slightly unsatisfactory.

  ‘You must be pleased with a full house,’ she felt compelled to say.

  ‘I’d be happier if the sound desk wasn’t on its last legs,’ he said. ‘Say a prayer to the gods of music for me, will ya?’

  He’s taking this really seriously, thought Aishe, as he turned to the next people in the queue. He genuinely wants the kids to have a good night.

  Eddie went up a notch in her estimation. Not far enough to make her like him, but enough to be glad that Gulliver had been given the chance to play at his school. The thought that she actually had Benedict to thank for that was choked to death before it had time to properly form.

  Michelle and Aishe found seats in a row near the front. There were four seats spare, and Aishe’s natural antipathy towards people led her to the one right on the end, nearest the aisle.

  ‘You should budge up,’ said Michelle, pushing past to take the seat next to her. ‘It’s rude to leave a gap.’

  ‘I need to be able to leave quickly,’ said Aishe, ‘in case my nerves can’t stand it.’

  ‘OK,’ said Michelle. ‘But if a big fat man sits next to me and sweats, I’m making you swap.’

  The lights in the hall dimmed. The crowd started to settle down, loud talk sinking to a murmur, programmes rustling, limbs shifting as people found the most comfortable position in the hall’s rigid and narrow folding chairs.

  Aishe became aware of someone standing in the aisle beside her chair, hissing, ‘Over here!’ Then the voice said, ‘Sorry, sorry,’ and Aishe was forced to lift her feet to let a young woman and her companion, someone in jeans and a leather jacket, push past.

  Aishe was trying to watch the stage, so it wasn’t until she heard Michelle say, ‘Hey, look who’s here’ that Aishe realised that the young woman, now sitting next to Michelle, was Izzy, and that her companion, who was avoiding her eye, was Benedict.

  ‘Oh, hiya,’ said Izzy to Aishe. ‘Gulliver’s mum, right?’

  Yes, that’s right, thought Aishe. To you, I’ll never have a name. I lost my identity as an individual sexual being as soon as I had a child. You don’t even consider me to be the same species. I am an ex-woman, a cipher, a hollow vessel. An empty jam jar with a faded label that says Gulliver’s Mother.

  Aishe slid a quick glance down the row to Benedict, whose attention seemed to be fully on the stage. But Aishe saw, even in the dim light, that his face was tense and his shoulders high.

  I bet it’s me who’s making him uncomfortable. The thought gave her a mean pleasure. And then into her head flashed another thought — I bet you anything you like that I could win him back in an instant. That stupid girl has no clue, no idea what I’m capable of. So why don’t I show her?

  I’m going to enjoy this evening, thought Aishe as she settled back in her seat. Even more than I’d hoped.

  The concert itself was excellent. The performers, aged between fourteen and seventeen, were skilled, talented musicians. The songs were good rock staples, chosen to please any crowd. Aishe’s heart flip-flopped only once, when Gulliver stepped forward to play the bass solo from Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain. But—

  ‘Nailed it!’ Michelle raised her hands above her head to applaud. ‘Whoo-hoo! Go Gulliver!’

  Before she could stop herself, Aishe cast another glance Benedict’s way. To her surprise — and his, judging by his expression — their eyes met. Because Aishe was, unwittingly, smiling, he offered her a smile in return, which started out hesitant but swiftly became wide and warm.

  Aishe felt a sudden stab of doubt. But then Izzy sat back, and draped her arm around Benedict’s shoulders and began to nuzzle on his ear. Aishe vowed to not look over again.

  In the foyer at half time, Michelle glanced around, frowning. ‘I have to go to the girls’ room,’ she said. ‘There’ll undoubtedly be a sodding great queue, so don’t wait. Meet me back at our seats.’

  Aishe acknowledged this with a nod. She was trying to track Benedict. With a quick hot rush of satisfaction she saw Eddie beckon Izzy over, and the two head back into the hall, presumably to get the stage sorted for the next half. Aishe watched Benedict hover for a minute, as if deciding what to do, before turning and heading out the entrance.

  Gotcha, thought Aishe, and began to move.

  Then a voice behind her said, ‘He’s fucking good, isn’t
he?’

  Patrick was beaming. ‘I’m seriously impressed. John Entwhistle in the making, I’d say. Though I should probably pick an example who’s alive …’

  ‘Yes, great. Excellent.’ Aishe tapped her foot. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She searched for an excuse that would forestall all other questions and chose the one that had never yet been known to fail. ‘Women’s problems.’

  ‘Right.’ Patrick actually backed up a step. ‘Well, I’ll — see you after.’

  Aishe didn’t wait to see if he broke into a run.

  She hadn’t a scrap of doubt that she could find Benedict, and so it proved. He was sitting on a concrete block in the small vacant lot that lay between the rear of the hall and the back wall of a row of shops.

  He stood up immediately and watched her approach with a wary expectancy, like a cowboy unsure if the opponent walking to face him will wait for the signal, or pull his gun at any second and start filling him with lead.

  She came up to him and took a stance with her thumbs hooked in the belt loops of her jeans, head to one side, a small, appraising smile.

  ‘Counting the spaces between stars?’ she said. ‘Or are you waiting for someone to whistle for you?’

  Benedict seemed to be searching for a snappy comeback — be a Bogart to her Bacall. But all he said was, ‘I needed some fresh air.’

  Aishe knew she had only minutes before the concert resumed. No time for chat.

  She placed one hand inside his jacket and under his t-shirt. She heard his sharp intake of breath and felt the goosebumps rise as she traced her thumb over the skin above his hip.

  ‘I don’t think that’s what you need,’ she said, and reached up her other hand to pull his lips down to hers.

  Two things occurred that Aishe was not prepared for: 1. the sheer force of the desire that swept through her, and 2. Benedict breaking the kiss and shaking himself free of her hands.