“To Harrison Ford,” he said. “And to us.”
CHAPTER 51
If you could be any woman in the world, who would you be? Right now, I’d be Andrea Corr. Permanently. She’s petite, extraordinarily pretty, can belt out a tune and looks like she doesn’t get involved in any way, whatsoever, with vomiting children. What more could you want?
Next to her, the other two Corr sisters look like regurgitated Nolans and the brother, poor old Jim Corr, looks like a bit of a gonk. But then lined up against such beauty, it would be hard not to. I used to be content being myself, but now I’ve got all sorts of bits that make me dissatisfied. I examine my face every morning to see if any of my myriad wrinkles have dared to edge another millimeter into my face. When I find another job—thanks again, Kath Brown—I’m going to set up a face-lift fund for when I’m fifty. Or maybe even forty. Depending on how bad things get.
They say that stress is aging, in which case my insides feel about ninety-four. I have almost continual stomachache and a crick in my neck like Ed always used to. My periods are completely up the spout, and I’m terrified of becoming pregnant. Ed, after much persuasion, had the chop—mainly because I’d threatened him with two house bricks in the garden shed if he didn’t. We never really got the hang of condoms—something for which Elliott should be eternally grateful. You wouldn’t think there was too much to go wrong, but we always managed to cock it up. No comments, thank you!
Christian and I also exhibit a certain carelessness in the condom department, which surprises me, considering how much he goes on about not being able to stand children. Hasn’t anyone told him the cabbage patch is a myth? And I worry about AIDS, but I haven’t said anything, because it seems to make a statement about not trusting your partner, which I know is stupid, but I can’t help it. I just hope Christian’s short past isn’t as colorful as his paintings.
I’m sitting here stressing about all this in my lounge and watching The National Lottery Show, hoping for a miracle. And a miracle it would have to be, because I never have time to buy a ticket. I have a drink in my hand and my feet on a footstool. And you will not believe this…brace yourself for it…despite his protestation of being a no-go zone as far as ankle biters are concerned, Christian is upstairs bathing Elliott. I think that’s worth repeating. Christian is bathing Elliott! As much a miracle as me winning the lottery without a ticket, I think you’ll agree.
This is mainly because I wept in the car all the way home, which, incidentally, made it an interesting drive. Elliott continued to produce vomit the color of candy floss and chopped-up sausage, and Christian, finding a strength of stomach from somewhere that was truly admirable, nursed him all the way home.
I don’t know how Social Services or even Ed would feel about the political correctness of a strange man bathing our four-year-old son, but at the moment I don’t care. There’s a lot of laughter drifting down the stairs, and that suits me fine. I have had enough of real life, really I have. Downing some more gin, I ponder on the day’s events. I wanted it to be so great. And, once again, Elliott steals the show. I think I’m going to sell that child for organ donation, starting with his head. The other two are no trouble at all. Or perhaps their version of trouble simply pales into insignificance when faced with a brother who is the world expert on trouble. I think he studied under Bart Simpson.
I have no sympathy for his illness, at all. It is entirely self-inflicted and, therefore, deserving of utmost contempt. If I’d bathed him, I’d have scrubbed him all over with a loofah just to make sure he remembered it. This gin is going down very quickly.
There is a thunder of feet down the stairs, and two faces appear at the door. Christian is clearly a man of his word. He promised not to be sick, and he, at least, has kept all his junk food safely inside him. He is, however, soaked, quite literally, through to the skin. “I’ve someone here to say good-night,” he says, and pushes Elliott into the room.
Elliott is scrubbed and gorgeous and his damp hair is curling round his face, framing it like a lovely little angel. Christian has dressed him in his cutest pajamas, and what’s left of Barney is on parade. Elliott comes up and throws his arms round my neck, cuddling me. “I’m sorry about being sick, Mummy,” he says, and I feel so awful that I’ve not looked after him properly that I’m going to have to drink some more gin to get over it.
“That’s all right, darling,” I coo—yes, I do. “It wasn’t your fault.”
“I think it was mine,” Christian says guiltily.
“Christian’s going to read me a story,” my beautiful, wide-eyed child says.
“Are you sure he didn’t say he was going to bludgeon you over the head with a book?”
“No.” Elliott slithers off my knee. “Christian likes me.”
Christian smiles indulgently. Elliott cups his hand to his mouth to whisper, and in a voice that could wake anyone unfortunate enough to be in one of the several cemeteries in the vicinity says, “And I like Christian!”
Much later when Christian must have worked his way through Elliott’s entire stash of storybooks, plus a few that he’d nicked from Thomas, my lover finally appears. It’s nine o’clock, and I look up from Parkinson, the only talk show I know where the host can actually string two sentences together. Parky is trying to get some sense out of the gorgeous, if slightly wrinkled, Welsh crooner Tom Jones and is failing. Christian flops down next to me. I pass him the gin bottle and a glass. He puts the glass to one side and swigs it straight from the bottle. I don’t blame him.
“You survived,” I say.
Christian turns his eyes to me. “It’s hard work, isn’t it?”
“Try doing it every day.” I raise my eyebrows in the very superior way that those with children do. “And it’s years before we can force Elliott to leave home.”
Christian takes my hand and fiddles with my nails. “I can see why you miss them so much.”
“Can you?” I didn’t mean to sound quite so incredulous.
“Of course I can. Elliott’s wonderful. He’s his own little person,” he says.
“Bastard child from hell, you mean.”
“You’d be lost without him.”
And perhaps it’s the gin, but my throat closes up and my eyes start to water.
“Don’t cry.” Christian pulls me to him. “I could get used to this parenting lark yet,” he says chirpily.
I sniff. “One clearing up of vomit does not a parent make.”
“I am trying though.” And even though he is nineteen years older than Elliott, he is every bit as cute.
“You did brilliantly,” I say and squeeze his hand. “You’re a hit with Thomas too.”
Christian screws up his nose. “I don’t think Tanya likes me.”
What can I say? I can hardly voice my fear that my daughter might like him just a tad too much. As it is, I have to compete for her affection with Ed. This is a situation I don’t even want to confront.
“She’ll come round,” I mutter.
Parky moves on to David Beckham, who I know is a footballer and, although he’s possibly not the sharpest pencil in the box, he is very sweet and uncomplicated. Or perhaps I just have a greater understanding of younger men now.
“Shall I stay here the night?” Christian asks.
I shake my head. “I don’t think I could cope with that. Even though it’s my house too, I feel very strange being here. It’s going to be weird enough to be back in my own bed. I don’t think I can face sharing it,” I confess. “Even though I’d like to.”
“We’ll have a quick drink,” he says, tipping some more gin into my glass and his mouth. “And then I’ll go home.”
“You’ll come back tomorrow?”
“I promised Elliott I’d teach him how to use a skateboard.”
“I’ll pencil in a visit to Casualty then….”
Christian laughs. He clearly thinks I’m joking.
CHAPTER 52
Christian was sitting in front of the television with a cu
p of hot chocolate snuggled in his lap, flicking through the TV channels trying to find some late-night viewing that might involve gratuitous sex or football. Currently both were eluding him. He was missing Ali and feeling distinctly uneasy about the thought of her spending the night back in her own bed in the bosom of her family, and him banished to the outside of this cozy enclave with his nose pressed against the cold glass. The hot chocolate and a Channel 4 documentary about the life and times of Benny Hill were not providing the comfort he sought.
Rebecca came in wearing a minimalist skirt and a top that looked like two Dairylea Cheese triangle wrappers joined together by a piece of glittery dental floss. She stopped in midstride.
“You are not staying in on a Saturday night,” she tutted, grabbing some money from her handbag on the table.
“So what if I am?” Christian tried to look engrossed in Heroes of Comedy. “I’m waiting for Match of the Day to start.”
There was an outpouring of the most forced, empty canned laughter he’d ever heard.
Rebecca put her hand on her tiny, jutty-out hip. “Who’s playing?”
“Er…”
Rebecca wagged her finger at him. “She is turning you into a boring old git,” she said.
“Just because I don’t want to get off my face every weekend anymore? It’s called growing up, Becs. You ought to try it.”
“So where is Lady Bountiful tonight?”
“At home. With her children.”
“And your presence wasn’t required?”
Christian wished he’d got a bottle of Vodka Absolut in his hand—you couldn’t do mean and moody with hot chocolate.
“It must feel very different for you to be at someone else’s beck and call,” Rebecca continued when he didn’t answer. “I have to hand it to her, she’s certainly got you where she wants you.”
Christian sank lower into the sofa.
“Come out with us,” Rebecca said.
“I haven’t got any money.”
“It’s never stopped you before.” Rebecca sat on the arm of the sofa and twisted one of Christian’s curls through her fingers. “Raid piggy.”
“Piggy helped us out of our last predicament, remember?”
Rebecca tutted again. “I’ll sub you,” she said. “In fact, I’ll treat you. Call it my way of saying that I forgive you for dumping me because you couldn’t stand commitment and then shacking up with someone old enough to be my mother with three brats in tow.”
“You’re all heart, Becs,” Christian sighed.
“Come on. I’m only going to The Rat to meet Robbie and a few mates.”
“Why are you dressed like that?”
“Because I live in the vain hope that there might be someone there worth pulling,” she said. “Come on. We’ll just get there in time for last orders. It’ll cheer you up.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Yeah, right.” They both looked at Benny Hill. “It’s ages since the three of us have been out on the town together. As mates.”
“Since Ali arrived,” Christian said pointedly.
“Well, now that you come to mention it…” Rebecca risked a smile.
Christian put down his hot chocolate. “I’ll have to come out to keep you quiet, won’t I?”
“There is one other way, Chris,” she said. “Kiss me.” She leaned forward, threatening to burst free of her triangles, and covered his mouth with hers. The kiss was long and searching and pleasantly familiar.
Rebecca broke away from him and pressed her lips together, tracing round them with her tongue. She looked at him ruefully. “But I guess that’s not on the agenda.”
Christian stood up. “Let’s go to The Rat,” he said.
The Rat was the pub that closing time forgot. Christian remembered his last drink. Or at least he thought he did. Robbie bought it for him, and possibly the ten previous ones. It was a Tequila Stuntman, Robbie’s invention, which was a sadistic progression from a Tequila Slammer that had seemed like a really good idea at the time. Instead of licking the salt from the back of his hand, downing the tequila in one and then squirting the lime juice in his mouth, his “friend”—and it was pertinent to use the word in quotation marks—had persuaded him to snort the salt, down two shots of tequila and then squirt himself in the eye with the lime juice. In hindsight, it was probably that which made him fall off the table.
Now it was some ungodly hour in the morning and he was propping up the wall by the front door of the house, with no idea how the journey back from the pub had been accomplished. His eyes were still smarting from their lime-juice assault and the salt had dried out the inside of his nose so that he was having to breathe through his mouth. Robbie stood in the road singing “Land of Hope and Glory” at the top of his voice, sucking, still, at a wedge of well-chewed lime. A window opened farther down the street and a voice shouted, “Shut the fuck up!” And, perhaps surprisingly, Robbie did.
Rebecca was searching all her pockets for her key, while Robbie took the opportunity to urinate loudly on the black plastic bin bag next door had left unwisely on their path.
When Rebecca finally opened the door, they all fell inside, sprawling on the welcome mat and the black and white Victorian tiles of the porch. Christian was giggling loudly.
“Toast,” Robbie croaked. “I need toast.” And he staggered off toward the kitchen, feeling along the wall for support as he went.
“Count me out, mate,” Christian slurred. “I need my bed.”
“Me too,” Rebecca said. Christian put his arm round her and somehow managed to haul her up without falling over himself again. They stumbled up the stairs, tripping over each other, laughing, falling down and finally crawling on all fours to the top of the landing.
Rebecca straightened herself up, leaning against the door frame in an attempt to stop swaying and pulled Christian up toward her. He stopped, arms round her waist, their breathing audible in the sudden stillness. Her hair smelt of cigarettes and her mouth of booze and cheese-and-onion crisps. The triangles of her top were very skewed. She rolled her eyes slightly as she tried to maintain a steady focus.
Rebecca traced her finger across his cheek in a line that wasn’t altogether straight. “Tonight was just like old times,” she said, smiling lopsidedly, a mixture of drunkenness and sadness. Coy, girlish, bold.
“Yeah,” Christian said. He should have taken his hands off her waist, but he had forgotten how he could almost touch the tips of his fingers together in the small of her back and the urge to see how far they could go was gluing them there.
The stubborn remains of Rebecca’s lipstick had stained her lips red. The black smear of her eyeliner had given her dark shadows under her eyes, making her look like a heroin addict, vulnerable and vaguely unhealthy. Her fingers grasped for Christian’s T-shirt at his shoulder. They were tiny, slender, like the rest of her, the nails painted scarlet. Temptation. “Do you still have that drawing of me over your bed?”
“Huh, huh.”
“What does Ali think of it?”
Christian shrugged. “She’s never said.”
Rebecca wet her lips, and her eyes fixed in a steady stare on his. “Can I come in and look at it?”
“You want to see my etchings?” Christian looked solemn. If he could have found a laugh from somewhere, it might have broken the moment, but like the canned laughter on the television, he couldn’t make the right sound. “It’s a very old line, Becs.”
“It’s the best one I can think of,” she said, and taking Christian’s hand followed him into the bedroom.
CHAPTER 53
Neil parked his aging Citroën half on and half off the curb outside Jemma’s shop in the vain hope that if there was a late-night clamping service, they would give him the benefit of the doubt and pass by without troubling him with a yellow boot. Also, Citroëns were bastards to clamp. It had been the main reason he bought one. That and the fact that he couldn’t afford a Ferrari.
He had tried to phone Jemma all day
yesterday, but had been distracted by Years Five to Eight of St. Apsley’s Middle School. The agenda had been sports photos—football, hockey and netball. It was a nightmare taking team photos. Despite the fact that each child had been sent home with a letter duly requesting that parents equip them with their appropriate team garments, invariably half of them turned up without kits. Consequently, on the team photos they came out looking like they’d been dressed from the Lost Property box—which they usually had.
Every time he had actually managed to call Jemma, her phone had been engaged. Or if it wasn’t engaged and his heart leapt joyously as it rang, it would only be dashed again by the answerphone cutting in. Last week when he’d rushed away from Ed’s and the appealing Miss Jones, he was heading for Jemma’s for another “strategy” meeting in the quest to reunite Alicia and Ed. Halfway to her house, his mobile had rung, and Jemma had broken the arrangement, citing a streaming cold as the excuse. And she did sniff convincingly. Since then, he had heard nothing.
It was ridiculous, but Neil seriously felt like he was halfway toward being in love with her. He had missed her so much this week, and he’d found himself looking dewy-eyed at St. Apsley’s netball team and not for the reasons you might think. Was it only women whose biological clocks ticked? He had a feeling his might be winding itself up for a chime or two.
He hadn’t been able to call today because the wedding season, it seemed, had begun in earnest, and from now until September he would be spending his Saturdays knee-deep in brides draped in satin and raw silk every conceivable color of the rainbow and grumbling wedding parties. It was late and he was on his way back from a particularly boisterous bash in Bermondsey, where the bride had looked big enough to give birth before the priest had pronounced the couple husband and wife and the best man was wearing his tails with an intimidating scowl. It had been a long and busy day, and Neil rubbed the tiredness from his eyes.
Notting Hill was not what you’d call especially “en route” to Camden. But then, where is? In fact, if he’d decided to go through Nottingham, it might have been a less circuitous route, but Jemma wasn’t to know that, and he could casually say that he’d dropped in on the off chance, such was his concern over the state of his brother’s marriage. Which wasn’t actually a million miles from the truth.