Be Careful What You Wish For

  She doesn’t fool me. I know she’s delighted.

  ‘Aha, I get it!’ His face springs back up again and Lionel pounds his fist on the table. ‘You’ve got a date with a young chap.’

  ‘Not exactly,’ I admit, plucking a few grapes from the bunch on the cheeseboard and popping them into my mouth one by one.

  ‘Not still mooning over that scoundrel, are you?’

  ‘His name’s Daniel,’ I remind him calmly. It’s only now, a year later, that I can even say his name without that awful breathless sensation, as if I’ve dived into the deep end of a swimming-pool and I’m trying to swim up to the surface. ‘And, no, that’s all in the past.’

  OK, so I sent him that text last week I remember shamefully, but I was drunk so it didn’t count.

  ‘When do we get to meet your new fella, then?’

  ‘Lionel,’ I gasp, suddenly feeling about thirteen again. Back then he would pick me up from the youth club and quiz me about boys as we walked back to our tiny slate-roofed cottage by the harbour. It was just after Mum had died, and suddenly he was taking me through puberty, first boyfriends, sex education. It had been a learning process for both of us.

  Lionel had never been a hands-on dad – when we were little my brother and I had learned quickly that he answered to Lionel rather than Daddy, although when he was in his studio, painting, he went for days without answering to anyone – so it had been something of an eye-opener for him to become a single parent. This was a man who’d never changed a nappy but was having to buy sanitary towels for his teenage daughter.

  Somehow we got through it. As he told me when, in tears, I’d barricaded myself into the bathroom with my first trainer bra, if we could get through losing a wife and a mother, we could get through anything.

  Including this lunch.

  ‘I’ve been too busy working to have a boyfriend.’

  ‘Heather’s what they call “a career woman”,’ notes Rosemary, squeezing lemon on her smoked salmon and draping a piece over a Ryvita. I watch her taking a careful nibble. Although there’s not an ounce of flesh on her bones, Rosemary’s forever watching her figure. Presumably in case it should disappear.

  ‘Your boss keeping your nose to the grindstone, hey?’ mumbles Lionel through a bite of Brie.

  ‘Something like that,’ I say vaguely, deciding not to mention the possibility of losing my job. I don’t want to worry him – or give Rosemary some more ammunition against me. If I hear one more time about Annabel, her daughter who’s only a year older than me but is happily married to Miles, ‘a high-flyer’ in the City, and has two adorable children, a loft conversion and a French-speaking nanny, I’ll . . . Well, I don’t know what I’ll do but I’m sure I’ll do something.

  Glancing at my stepmother, who’s patting her pale yellow hair, which she’s put up, as always, into an immaculate chignon, I can’t help wondering what it would be like if Mum was still alive so that I could talk to her about my worries and get her advice. Ask her for a hug.

  ‘Oh, I love weddings!’ I’m distracted from my thoughts by Rosemary clasping her hands girlishly. ‘I do envy you, your job must be so romantic.’

  Taken aback by this uncharacteristic compliment, I’m unsure what to say. Rosemary and I don’t do compliments: our conversation consists of a form of jousting, each trying to knock the other off balance. It’s exhausting. Sometimes I wish we could just make small-talk about EastEnders or discuss the new duvet cover she’s bought, like Jess does with her mum. But, then, Rosemary isn’t my mum.

  I look at her sadly, my throat tight. And she never will be.

  ‘Er . . . well, not really,’ I begin hesitantly. ‘I’m there to take the photographs, and when you’ve done as many weddings as I have, one is very much like another.’

  ‘Not when it’s your own,’ she says pointedly, looking at Lionel like a lovestruck new bride.

  I squirm. It really annoys me when Rosemary gets all soppy around Lionel. ‘No, maybe not,’ I agree reluctantly. To agree with Rosemary is usually tantamount to defeat, but this time I change my mind. Maybe I’ve been wrong about her all this time. Maybe, like Lionel says, she really does want to be friends.

  ‘Never mind, dear.’ Reaching over for the wine, she pats my arm. ‘It’ll be your turn one day.’

  It’s not as if she meant that in a bitchy way, she was just trying to be nice, right?

  ‘More wine anyone?’ she finishes topping up her glass and holds the bottle aloft.

  ‘Mmm, yes, that would be fabulous.’ Lionel beams.

  ‘Actually I’m single out of choice, not necessity,’ I point out casually. ‘Plenty of men ask me out on dates.’

  ‘I’m sure they do, a pretty girl like you,’ agrees Rosemary, much to my surprise. So, she really is trying to be nice. Obviously it’s just me being paranoid. ‘Though it was different in my day. If you weren’t married by the time you were thirty, you were considered on old maid.’

  Ouch. See what happens when I let my guard down? She goes right for the jugular.

  ‘Oh, but it’s different now, my love,’ replies Lionel, helping himself to potato salad and several slices of ham in ignorance of the Third World War that’s currently being waged across the table between his wife and his daughter. ‘Times have changed. Heather’s probably beating them off like flies, hmm?’ He gazes at me adoringly. As far as Lionel’s concerned, I’m the most beautiful, talented, intelligent woman that’s ever walked on this planet.

  ‘OK, so perhaps “plenty” is a slight exaggeration,’ I admit, guilted out by Lionel’s devotion. ‘But that’s not the point.’

  ‘It’s not?’ pipes up Rosemary, resting her hand on Lionel’s. To anyone else that would appear to be an act of affection, but to me it looks like possession. I don’t know why she doesn’t wear a sign round her neck saying, ‘Hands off, he’s mine.’

  ‘No, it’s not the point at all,’ I repeat emphatically. ‘The point is . . .’ I begin, and then stop. Because, you see, I’m not sure what the point is any more. Realising I have no hope of winning this argument I look at Rosemary’s face flushed with victory, and I surrender.

  For the time being.

  After lunch, we go outside and have Pimm’s on the lawn and a game of chess. A keen player Lionel has built a giant chessboard on the patio and when Rosemary goes inside to lie down – ‘It’s the heat, so incredibly tiring’ – he and I pace round the board, carrying the four-foot-high polystyrene pieces on to different-coloured squares, trying to put each other in check-mate. As father and daughter we’re the best of friends; as chess opponents we’re sworn enemies.

  ‘Check-mate,’ I announce triumphantly, setting down my bishop.

  Lionel bites down hard on the stem of his pipe. ‘Poppycock!’

  I fold my arms and watch as he stomps round the pieces, forehead furrowed in concentration.

  ‘So, do you admit defeat?’ I tease.

  ‘Never!’ he roars. Running his fingers through his unruly curls, he continues pacing. ‘That can’t be.’

  ‘Yes, it can.’ This is a well-rehearsed routine. Whenever I win a game my father’s reaction is, first, disbelief, then disagreement, and finally, ‘Good Lord, how did you manage that?’

  He’s stopped circling and is standing, hands on hips, his face incredulous.

  ‘I had a good teacher,’ I reply, as I always do.

  ‘Aah, you’re too kind,’ he mutters, patting my shoulder affectionately. ‘I was a terrible player until I met your mother. Did I ever tell you about the first time we played chess?’

  ‘You were both eighteen and in your first year at Cambridge.’ I know this story off by heart.

  ‘That’s right,’ nods Lionel, reminiscing. ‘A tutor had organised a chess tournament with one of the ladies’ colleges and I nearly didn’t go as it clashed with auditions for a play I wanted to be in.’

  ‘The Duchess of Malfi,’ I prompt.

  ‘It was.’ He’s delighted that I should remember. ‘But at the last min
ute I changed my mind and signed up for the tournament. It took place in the banqueting hall and I remember walking in and looking for my opponent. And then I saw her, sitting under a shaft of sunlight, waiting for me . . .’

  ‘A dazzling redhead who played chess like a Russian.’

  ‘She had me within six moves. Six moves was all it took.’ Lionel shakes his head as if he still can’t believe it, even after all these years.

  We fall silent, drinking in the memory like vintage wine.

  ‘I still miss her,’ I say eventually.

  ‘I know, darling.’

  ‘I wish she was here with us right now’

  ‘Now, that would make me a bigamist.’

  I smile wryly at his feeble joke. I know he’s trying to make me feel better but it still hurts. ‘I just wish things were different.’

  Puffing at his pipe, Lionel fixes me with his pale grey eyes. They’re just like mine, almond-shaped, with tiny flecks of navy blue round the iris. ‘You mustn’t wish your life away, Heather.’

  His face is serious but it doesn’t stop me quipping, ‘Why not?’

  He lets a stream of smoke spiral up from the corner of his mouth. ‘Because life’s far too short to waste a single drop of it. Your mother taught me that.’ He pauses to watch a bird hovering by the fountain, its tiny body glistening in the sunlight as it dips its beak into the water. For a moment he is lost in contemplation. ‘You know I once read somewhere that yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present.’

  Absorbing the words I’m struck by its profundity.

  I wonder which philosopher came up with that. Presumably some Buddhist monk or another spiritual leader who had spent his life doing good deeds and existing on the love of others. Someone who lived without possessions. Someone who probably didn’t even own a pair of shoes. Let alone a pair of overpriced sandals that ended up in the bin. Suddenly I feel ashamed. ‘Who said that?’ I ask, reverentially.

  Having drunk its fill the bird darts away and my dad turns back to me. ‘I think it was Joan Collins,’ he confesses, and linking his arm through mine we begin walking slowly to the house.

  Chapter Seven

  The drive back to London always takes for ever. For some strange reason, never explained to me, the M4 is always ‘currently undergoing roadworks’, which means hours in traffic jams or crawling at 30 m.p.h. through elaborate patterns of orange cones that appear mysteriously during the night. Yet you never see any evidence of any ‘works’ taking place. It’s one of life’s mysteries.

  Like crop circles, I muse, accelerating on to the motorway from the slip road and wishing there was no such thing as roadworks or traffic. Just imagine, if it was clear like this all the way I’d be home in no time.

  As I speed up I increase the volume to drown the sound of the wind. In preparation for the inevitable delays I’ve made myself some new cassettes. I’ve also packed supplies in the form of a bumper bag of liquorice allsorts. Well, if I’m going to be stranded on the M4 I might as well have The Best of Duran Duran and my favourite pink and yellow ones with liquorice in the middle to keep me company. I pop one into my mouth and bite into the soft, sweet coconut.

  But twenty minutes into the journey, I’m feeling a little disconcerted. I can’t put my finger on it but something’s weird. Blustering along in the fast lane with the roof down, my hair tucked tightly out of knots’ way in a headscarf I feel as if something’s missing. Music? Nope: Simon Le Bon’s belting out ‘Rio’ at full volume. Food? Nope. I pick a bit of liquorice out of my back molar, then push my hand back into the bag. Headlights? It’s still dusk so I only need sidelights. I check them. Nope, they’re on.

  Then I get it.

  Orange cones. There aren’t any.

  And neither are there any traffic jams. Smiling in happy disbelief, I press my flip-flop against the accelerator. At this rate I’ll be home in less than two hours.

  Correction: one hour and forty-two minutes exactly. I know because I check my watch as I turn into my street. It has to be something of a world record. I slow down and idle along the tree-lined pavement. Leaning over the steering-wheel, top teeth over bottom lip, eyes darting from side to side, I begin my usual routine of looking for a parking space. I don’t hold out much hope. In all the years I’ve lived at my flat I’ve never parked outside it.

  ‘I wish there was a space,’ I murmur, under my breath, ‘just one parking space . . .’

  But it’s bumper-to-bumper all the way down my street. I fling myself back in my seat and put my foot down. I’ll have to circle the block. Probably about a dozen times. And end up parking about a mile away. Through unlit streets that are probably swarming with muggers and rapists and . . . ohmygod!

  While imagining my generally safe neighbourhood as the kind of gangland ghetto you see in Al Pacino films, I nearly drive straight into a Range Rover. Parked facing the wrong way, it’s indicating right and, as it swings in front of me, I slam on the brakes.

  I come to an abrupt halt, my head flung back like that of a crash-test dummy and look up at the windscreen of the Range Rover. ‘Sorry,’ I mouth silently at the driver.

  It’s him. My neighbour.

  For a moment I’m not quite sure what to do so I sit there as he nods a curt response, swerves round me and roars off down the street. Leaving me sitting there like a right lemon.

  I look in my rear-view mirror and watch the grey swirls of fumes round his exhaust, listening to the noise of the four-litre engine as he accelerates away. Typical! I’ve done it again. I’ve bumped into him like a complete idiot. Depressed, I slump over my steering-wheel and rest my forehead on the shiny MG badge in the centre. I close my eyes and I replay the last scene torturously in my head, with the look he gave me as he drove away – then spring up again. Hang on a minute. If he’s gone, that means . . .

  There, where the Range Rover was just parked, right opposite my flat, I see what any London resident will describe as a modern-day miracle. A parking space.

  I hadn’t thought much about what I was going to say to my prospective flatmate. In fact, since I’d put down the phone after our conversation yesterday evening, I hadn’t given the stranger with the American accent and the funny name a second thought. I’d been too busy spending time with Lionel while trying to avoid Rosemary – never an easy task – not to mention enjoying the novelty of driving too fast on the motorway and parking outside my front door.

  But now it’s six o’clock. He’s due to turn up in a hour. And I am thinking about him. I’m wondering what on earth I’m going to say, what I’m going to ask him, what rules I’m going to lay down. And, most importantly of all, as I stand in front of my wardrobe in my bobbly old dressing-gown, with a towel wrapped round my sopping hair: what the hell am I going to wear?

  I’m no closer to answering this question thirty minutes later when every inch of my bedroom floor is covered with clothes. Denim mini-skirt? Too mini. Beach dress from last year’s holiday to Ibiza? Too hippie. Off-the-shoulder Karen Millen top I’ve never worn? Trying too hard.

  Exhausted, I perch on the edge of the bed and stare at the empty wire hangers clanging dolefully inside my wardrobe. Usually in a moment of crisis I’d ring Jess for advice, but she’s in India. I pick my cuticles for a few minutes, and then, in desperation, call her anyway. It goes straight to voicemail. Bugger. I glance at my digital alarm clock: 18:50.

  Oh, bugger bollocks. I’ve got to make a decision. OK. As usual I’ve got nothing to wear. OK, so I hate all my clothes. But as I have no credit cards, money or time, I either greet my possible new flatmate wearing a bobbly old dressing-gown with a tropical-fish beach towel wrapped round my head, or . . . ?

  Feeling like a chef on Ready, Steady, Cook – faced with five minutes to make something fabulous out of a few lousy vegetables and a piece of old Cheddar – I think, Sod it, grab a few items from the bed and start to get dressed.

  19.05. He’s late. I puff nervously as a cigarette an
d dart up and down the living room, trying to peer out of the window without anyone seeing me. Nothing. Fiddling absentmindedly with my hair – trying to twist the damp curls into ringlets rather than the frizz that would send John Frieda and his serums into apoplexy – I blow smoke against the glass pane, then catch myself. Jesus. I think back to the list of house rules I came up with when I put the ad in the paper.

  Number one: no smoking indoors.

  I haul open a sash window, then waft my arms around manically, trying to get rid of the smoke. Before realising that I’m still holding the cigarette, which probably isn’t helping. Oh, shite – I stub it out in an empty coffee cup on the mantelpiece. Oh, fuck.

  Number two: no using the crockery as an ashtray.

  19.12. Maybe he’s got lost. Standing by the back door that opens out on to the tiny patch of grass and honeysuckle that I like to call my garden (and which Rosemary sniffily refers to as my ‘yard’), I sip my drink. I’ve moved on to gin and tonic. Less smelly. And, anyway, I’ve given up smoking, remember?

  As I rattle the ice-cubes in my glass, I try to imagine what an American will think of my garden. Probably that it’s quaint. He’s probably never been to England before: he’ll think London is like something from a Richard Curtis film and that Hugh Grant lives round the corner. No doubt he’ll want to ask me lots of questions about our traditions, the Royal Family and David Beckham, and it’s important that I’m the perfect host: gracious, entertaining, welcoming.

  19.18. Where the fuck is he? Having downed two gin and tonics, now I’m getting antsy. ‘Don’t tell me I’m being stood up,’ I huff, as I stomp round my flat, feeling like a wronged girlfriend. My bladder sends me into the bathroom for a pee. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve gone to all this trouble . . .’ OK, maybe that’s a bit strong when I’m wearing a skirt that needs ironing, an embroidered cheesecloth top I found at the market, and a bit of lipgloss – but, still, I’ve made an effort of sorts. ‘Which is more than he has,’ I huff again, tugging at the loo roll so that it rattles loudly. ‘He can’t even be bothered to show up!’