She looked upset as well as wet, Ed noticed. “Is there anything wrong?” he asked.
“Elliott,” she said flatly.
Ed’s heart sank. He might have guessed. “What now?”
Nicola looked up and her eyes were red-rimmed and distressed. “He told me you’re seeing another woman.”
“Did he.” That child was going to be grounded until he was thirty-six. “You’d better come through.”
Nicola slipped off her coat and hung it on the end of the banister and followed Ed through to the lounge.
“Drink?” he offered with a wave of his glass.
Nicola hugged her arms. “I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
“This is neat scotch.”
“That’s fine,” she said and sat herself down on the sofa.
Fighting his rising eyebrows, Ed poured her a large scotch. He handed her the glass and sat down next to her. “Thanks,” Nicola said with an unhappy smile. Her mass of blond hair cascaded in sodden curls round her shoulders and her damp T-shirt clung tightly to her bra, which seemed a rather inadequate container for its voluptuous contents. Ed dragged his eyes away from them.
“So what exactly did Elliott say?”
“He said she was called Orville.”
Ed laughed. “Orla. She’s called Orla.”
Nicola gulped her whisky. “So it’s true?”
“She’s a colleague,” Ed said, hoping that he didn’t look as hot as he felt.
“Nothing more?”
“We’re working on something together,” he replied, wondering what it had really got to do with Nicola and why he couldn’t just tell her straight out that moving to the States and shacking up with Orla were both fairly imminent moves. “Is it a problem?” he said.
“It shouldn’t be, I know,” she said, glugging her whisky again. “We hardly know each other. But…” She curled her knees up on the sofa and huddled into herself. “Do you mind if I’m frank with you?”
“No,” Ed said. “No. Not at all.” Oh please, please be anything but frank with me!
“I really feel that there could be something special between us, Ed.”
“Special?”
“I know you feel it too.” Her face was imploring. “Or at least I thought you did.”
Did he? Well, it was certainly true that various parts of his anatomy had perked up considerably since she’d arrived. Particularly since she’d arrived looking like a lost and bewildered entrant for a Miss Wet T-Shirt contest.
“Is it because I’m Elliott’s teacher?”
“What?”
“Do you think it’s a barrier between us?”
“No. No. Not at all.” Realizing as he spoke that it would have been a great get-out clause. “Well, perhaps.”
“I adore your children,” she said earnestly. “I have a special soft spot for Elliott.”
“So do I,” Ed agreed. About six feet under at the base of the cherry tree in the garden.
“He’s at Toby’s tonight, isn’t he?”
“Yes. And Thomas is at a swimming gala….” It was information he wasn’t sure he should have volunteered.
“Is Tanya out too?” Nicola’s voice had risen slightly. She knocked back the remains of her drink.
“Yes,” Ed said. “She’s out terrifying the local youths with Michaela Johnson.”
“So we’re alone?”
“Yes,” Ed said uncertainly. “I think I’ll just pop upstairs and get you a towel. You’re still looking awfully wet.”
Ed shot out of the lounge and bounded up the stairs. He leant against the airing-cupboard door and finished his own drink. What was he thinking of? He should have told her that Tanya would be back at any minute or that Neil would be calling round. How could he possibly entertain the thought of sleeping with Miss Jones? He was behaving like Julio Iglesias! Well, not quite. Julio Iglesias had bragged of bedding two thousand women, so two in a fortnight was chicken feed by comparison, but it was better than Ed had done in his previous twenty years. What would Neil do in this situation? Oh don’t even go there, Edward. His brother would simply hurl himself into it joyously like Elliott diving into a ball pond.
Technically, he wouldn’t be cheating on Ali because they were by all accounts separated, and was he in a committed enough relationship with Orla to remain absolutely one hundred percent faithful? How would he feel if she were doing the same thing? Not overly worried at this minute, he had to admit. Going back to the shoe-shop analogy, this could be the ideal opportunity to try on another pair for size. Just to make sure. Ed chewed at his fingernail. Perhaps he should phone Neil.
Ed heard a creak on the staircase and whipped open the airing-cupboard door and started searching the untidy piles for a towel that didn’t look like it had bathed a hundred children. He found one and turned to see Miss Nicola Jones, Elliott’s nursery-school teacher, stark naked at the top of the stairs, wearing nothing but a sexy smile.
“I thought I’d catch my death of cold,” she said girlishly. “I had to get out of those wet things.”
Ed gulped. “I can see,” he said.
Nicola slinked toward him and took the towel from his now rather unsteady hand. She tossed it back in the airing cupboard, closed the door and, taking his hand, led him toward his own bedroom.
“What shoe size are you?” Ed murmured.
“What?” Miss Jones purred.
“Nothing,” Ed sighed. “Nothing at all.” And he scooped her up in his arms and kicked the door closed behind him.
CHAPTER 57
Neil was wearing his boxer shorts, eating yesterday’s pizza out of the box and watching a grainy blue movie that Adam at the pub had lent him, and it was truly, truly terrible. Adam had insisted it was hot stuff, but in Neil’s opinion it was marginally more lukewarm than the pizza he was reluctantly munching. Neil tilted his head and tried to work out what he was watching. There was some fat German bird involved and a bloke who looked like he’d just walked straight out of The Village People and they were in a lift together, or it might have been a cupboard. There was no plot, so it was hard to tell, but then there never are in these things. The German bird was starting to moan at things that were presumably going on out of camera shot, and the bloke had a very funny look on his face and his eyes screwed up.
Neil put his pizza to one side and opened another can of beer. Perhaps his brother ought to consider going into the world of pornography; the last commercial he had made for Post Office Savings Accounts had been way, way more interesting than this. It had featured the lovely Gloria Hunniford, and right now Gloria was more likely to do it for him than this German bird.
The doorbell rang, and Neil put his beer down and headed down the stairs to the front door. He had opened it, wide, before his brain computed the fact that the shapely silhouette outlined in the frosty glass belonged to his beautiful sister-in-law, Jemma. She looked immaculate and very slightly horrified. Her hair shone like polished amber in the sunshine and she was wearing flared camel leather trousers, the sort that Gwyneth Paltrow would look great in, and a soft, fluffy sweater that was probably cashmere if Neil had any idea what cashmere looked like, and a leather jacket the color of melted Mars bars. Jemma’s eyes conducted a brief appraisal of his own wardrobe, and he realized that her assessment of his clothing would not require the same amount of eloquence. He was wearing boxers, black, circa 1991 of the Kmart variety. Caught by the love of his life in ten-year-old shreddies.
“Neil,” Jemma said, as if she was unsure.
“Hi,” Neil said, resisting the urge to cross his hands above his testicles in penalty shoot-out mode. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
Jemma gave him an ice-maiden stare. “You haven’t returned my calls.”
“I’ve been meaning to,” he said, but in truth he hadn’t felt much like talking to Jemma after the cup-of-tea-in-the-face incident. He was humiliated, embarrassed and not a little sulky. And he hadn’t a clue what to say anyhow.
“I’m sorry a
bout the cup-of-tea thing,” she said, fiddling with her hair. “I wanted to apologize.”
Neil shrugged. “That’s okay. You weren’t the first.” Actually she was, but he didn’t want to give her any sense of satisfaction or originality. “You probably won’t be the last.” Although he sincerely hoped she would be.
“You’re not cross with me?”
“No.” Yes. And he wanted to know who was the Teutonic-looking bloke with the blond hair and the big car and whether they’d laughed at him as they’d driven away. Probably. He would have.
“I don’t usually do that sort of thing. I don’t know what came over me.” Jemma shuffled about on the pavement as the traffic of Camden High Street trundled by the end of the road. “I’m under a lot of pressure,” she explained. “This thing with Ed and Ali has got me really stressed.”
“Me too,” Neil said. He suspected Jemma might be even more stressed if he told that his older brother was now not only shagging his work mate, but was also giving one to Elliott’s nursery-school teacher. Ed had phoned him in a state of heightened anxiety to confess all to him the following morning. Neil wasn’t sure how much it had helped his brother come to terms with his guilt when he had laughed like a drain and nicknamed him Edward “Two Shags” Kingston.
Jemma glanced up and down the street and then back at Neil’s boxer shorts. “Can I come in?”
“Well…”
“We need to decide what to do.”
“This isn’t a great time….” Two could play at that game.
“We have to have something in place before Ali gets back from the Maldives,” Jemma said. “It’ll have to be now.” And she pushed past Neil and started to climb the stairs to his flat. A waft of perfume teased his nostrils, it was heavy, exotic and, no doubt, hellishly expensive. He had always wanted to be the type of man who could identify perfumes by the merest hint, but he couldn’t, not by a long chalk. This could have been anything—Opium, Ghost, CKOne or Jif Lemon-Scented Bathroom Cleaner even. With a sigh, Neil closed the door on the noise of the street and tramped up the stairs behind her.
Jemma’s step faltered only slightly when she approached the lounge door and the sounds of an enthusiastic orgasm started to drift out. “Yes, yes, yes,” the German bird shouted.
Jemma flushed. “Have you got company?”
Neil adopted a vacant look. “Me? No.”
“Oh do it to me, big boy!”
Jemma turned and looked questioningly at Neil, who feigned ignorance with a suitably blank expression and casual shrug of his shoulders. “Channel Five?” he offered, as if hazarding a guess.
His sister-in-law strode into the room ahead of him. On the television screen, big boy did indeed appear to be doing it to her, in rather Technicolor magnificence, as it happened.
“Channel Five,” Neil confirmed with a nod.
They both stood and tilted their heads to watch, partly in wonderment, partly in horror.
“Well.” Jemma sat down abruptly on the sofa, her hand resting on the video box that announced BIG, BAD AND BOUNCY IN BERLIN in dripping red letters two inches high with a picture of the same woman being particularly bad and bouncy on the cover. She picked up the box. “Well,” she said again.
Neil snapped off the television. He thought about telling her he was trying to learn another language and this was for purely educational purposes, but then realized that the language of commercial bonking was pretty much universal. Jemma had paled and she was staring glassy-eyed at him. His eyes followed her gaze, and he realized that he had a glob of lovely red tomato sauce and cheese from his pizza sticking to his chest hair. And a bloody great hard-on.
“I can explain,” Neil said.
“Save it, Neil,” she said frostily. “What you do in your spare time is none of my concern.”
“But…” Neil felt on the verge of spluttering.
“Needless to say, I won’t mention this to either Ed or Ali. It will remain our little secret.” Jemma put the box down pointedly, with the picture facing downward.
“But…”
“And that’s what I’m here to discuss.” Jemma sat primly, as if filth was emanating from the fibers of the carpet. Which it quite possibly was.
“Let me go and get dressed,” Neil said, trying to keep the begging note from his voice. They both glanced at the small but very noticeable tent in the front of his shorts.
“Hurry up,” she said briskly. And all thoughts of them being reconciled and traveling round Europe together in blissful union and Neil photographing stylish collections of her clothes in exotic locations for a four-page spread in Vogue vanished before his eyes in a puff of smoke. Smoke so strong that it was actually making them water. His erection deflated like a popped balloon. Deciding that saying nothing was probably the best policy, Neil slumped his shoulders and skulked from the room.
Jemma had reluctantly accepted a cup of tea and he had moved the lager cans and the pizza box and the BIG, BAD AND BOUNCY IN BERLIN video and she was no longer looking at him as if he was a depraved monster. He, in turn, was no longer looking at her as potential girlfriend material.
“We need to set them up,” Jemma said, clutching her mug for safety.
Neil had checked all of his cups for suitable slogans, eschewing I caught the crabs at Vic’s Seafood Restaurant and Photographers Do It in the Dark, featuring a naked man with a large telephoto lens, and had given her the very unsexy one for Stannah Stair Lifts that Ed had got free on a video shoot years ago. He kept a close eye on it, lest she felt moved to hurl the contents at him again. Clad in jeans and a black T-shirt, also without slogan, he had retreated to the armchair in the corner so as not to appear he was about to pounce on her in the mode of BIG, BAD AND BOUNCY IN BERLIN.
“They’re never going to agree to meet each other to talk this through. They’re both being so pigheaded. I can’t understand it. You’d think they didn’t want to sort it out.”
“Maybe they don’t,” Neil ventured.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Jemma said. “They’re made for each other, and we’ve got to make them realize that.”
“How will we do that?” Neil asked, trying to sound enthusiastic. It wasn’t that he had lost interest in the quest to reunite Ed and Ali, since he did agree that both were being pigheaded and were made for each other—well, yes, he had in fact lost interest in the quest now that there appeared to be no perks for him involved.
“We’ll arrange for them to have a surprise meal together and just leave them to their own devices.” Jemma nodded confidently.
“I thought it was being left to their own devices that had got them in trouble in the first place?”
Jemma ignored him. “I thought The Ivy,” she said. “Ali’s always wanted to go there.”
“Don’t you have to book about a squillion years in advance?”
“You’ll think of a way round it.” She waved dismissively with her hand. “Give them a ring.”
“Now?”
“Time is of the essence,” Jemma said.
Huffing, Neil searched down the side of the armchair until he found his mobile phone. He punched for Directory Enquiries and got the number for The Ivy. Neil sat up in the chair when someone from the restaurant answered the phone.
“Hi,” he said. “I’d like to book a table. As soon as possible. For two.”
He examined his fingernails while he waited. “Three months!” He looked aghast at Jemma. “You can’t do one for how long? Hold on, please.” Neil whispered to Jemma. “They can’t do a table for three months.”
“Of course they can!” she whispered back. “Say something!”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t they go somewhere else?”
“Where?”
“I don’t know,” Neil hissed. “You don’t have to book at Pizza Express.”
“Neil!” Jemma looked venomous.
“Okay, okay.” Neil thought for a moment then: “Er… This is Lord Neville
of Kingston,” he said as if he’d got an entire bag of boiled sweets stuck in his mouth. “I wanted to bring Daddy up from the country. I hoped to do it rather sooner.”
Jemma flung herself back on the sofa in disgust.
“What?” he mouthed at her.
Jemma beat herself about the head with a cushion.
Neil’s face broke into a smug grin. “Two weeks?” He fixed Jemma with an I-told-you-so look. “Why, thank you. That’ll be fine. Charmed, I’m sure.”
Neil hung up and punched the air.
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Jemma sneered. “You sounded more like a Cockney street vendor than Lord Flaming Neville of Wherever.”
“They’re in,” Neil said sharply. “What more do you want?”
Jemma stopped and bit her lip. Tears filled her eyes. “I want them to be happy,” she said softly.
Neil crossed the room and took her hand, giving it a squeeze. “Me too, Jem. Me too.”
“Neil,” Jemma frowned, and all her fierceness sagged out of her, “what do you think the chances are of bringing Ed and Ali back together?”
“At the moment?” Neil mused sadly. “About the same as bringing back hanging.”
CHAPTER 58
Elliott, Thomas and Tanya sat on the floor in Thomas’s bedroom. The Scalectrix, the Game Boys and Harry Potter had been cleared away to under the bed, and the children faced each other in a tight circle. Tanya twiddled her fingers in what she assumed to be an expert way and then licked her tongue wetly along the cigarette paper. The boys looked on in rapt awe.
“So,” she asked, “which one of the new other halves do we like best? If any.”
“I like them all,” Elliott piped up.
“That’s because you’re a lamebrain,” his sister snarled.
“It takes one to know one,” he retorted. Tanya kicked out at him.
“We want our parents to get back together, don’t we?”
“Why?” Elliott said.
“Because that’s how it’s supposed to be, idiot.”
“All my friends’ parents are divorced,” Thomas said.
“Yes,” Tanya sighed, “but that doesn’t mean they know what’s good for them. You know what adults are like. What do you think?”