‘Kenman!’ said Clare triumphantly. ‘That’s the weatherman’s name. Maybe he’s her grandson.’
An old man who lived across the street, whose name was Jim, said he knew Mrs Kenman from a local senior citizens’ club. He confirmed that she was indeed the proud grandmother of a TV weatherman. Her other grandson was a solicitor down in Southampton. Her granddaughter was a doctor. Jim’s recently deceased ex-wife had known her better, he said. Jim hadn’t seen Emma Kenman in three months. Jim didn’t get out much these days. Not much to get out for since his wife was gone.
‘I’ve never heard such nonsense! You must come to us for your dinner,’ said Nelly, a Ukrainian woman who lived next door to Jim with her husband and teenaged son. This was the first time Nelly had spoken to Jim, though her family had lived on the street for almost a year. She said she was embarrassed that she had not introduced herself already. She blamed pressure of work. She and her husband were setting up a catering company. I had seen their van, painted with the legend ‘Nelly’s Nibbles – weddings, christenings, funerals’. Perhaps I ought to say something about the off-putting nature of ‘funerals’.
‘Where I come from,’ she said now, ‘nobody has to spend all their time alone.’
‘Thank you,’ said Jim, ‘but—’
‘No buts,’ said Nelly. ‘You can come too,’ she told me. ‘You live on your own, I know. I have seen you walking home looking lonely lots of times.’
Really? Even when I was supposed to be loved up with Callum?
‘No one should have to be all by themselves. People aren’t meant to be alone.’
‘I only wish I could get some time to myself,’ said her son, earning himself a gentle clip round the ear.
‘This is Terence,’ said Nelly. ‘He should be inside doing his coursework. Second World War. The Blitz.’
‘I can tell you a thing or two about the Blitz,’ said Jim.
‘All the more reason for you to come for supper,’ said Nelly. ‘Let me know when is convenient for you. Tomorrow? Or Thursday? Are you vegetarian?’
‘No, but I don’t eat much red meat these days,’ Jim told her.
‘Good man. Very bad for you. You’ – she pointed at me – ‘you look like a vegetarian.’
I guessed that it was meant to be an insult this time.
‘I will feed you up,’ she said, looking me up and down. ‘Give you a bust.’
My sister roared with laughter.
In the space of half an hour after the departure of the ambulance, I had learned more about the street I lived in and its inhabitants than I had in the previous three years. All that time I had assumed that my neighbours wanted to keep themselves to themselves, to the extent that I would cross the road to give them space rather than offer a friendly nod as I passed. The thought that I had been so wrong made me quite reflective. Now it seemed that everyone was scrabbling to connect. Nelly was introducing Jim to the people who lived on the opposite side of her house, like an expert hostess putting guests at ease at the beginning of a party.
‘This is Zach and Gilda. They’re working in a West End show. Aren’t they a lovely young couple?’
Couple? I had a feeling that the only thing about glamorous Gilda that interested the equally exotic Zach was her shoe collection, but I nodded at Nelly’s observation, and Zach looked happy enough too.
My sister, meanwhile, was enjoying her new status as heroine of the day, recounting the story of how she had spotted the smoke and we’d gone inside and put out the fire, with just a few embellishments. She started from the beginning for two newcomers, Henry and Tabby, who lived in the building on the opposite side. Tabby and Henry were two guys in their early twenties. They worked in the City. I had seen them staggering home from the pub some evenings and staggering out to work on the odd morning. I had cursed them the evening of an England rugby victory, when they woke the whole street with their singing on the way home.
‘So, we were sitting on our beach—’ said Clare.
‘Beach?’ Tabby asked.
‘Yes, our beach.’
‘You’ve got a beach?’
‘In our back garden. You should come over.’
‘This I have to see,’ said Henry.
‘It’s just a pile of sand,’ I said.
‘And a paddling pool,’ Sally pointed out.
‘With deckchairs,’ said Dexter. The children had been allowed back out to see the fire engine. There was no keeping them inside.
‘Come now. It’s a beautiful evening,’ said Clare. ‘And we’ve got sangria.’
‘I think we’ve got some beers we could spare,’ said Tabby. ‘We were planning a barbecue.’
‘So were we,’ said Nelly. ‘I am experimenting with some recipes for our company.’
‘Bring them over,’ said Clare. ‘We can help you do a taste test.’
‘You’re on.’
As our new friends disappeared into their homes to prepare for the impromptu evening ahead, I stared at Clare, open-mouthed.
‘I can’t believe you just invited everyone round. We’re supposed to be in hiding, remember? Keeping a low profile.’
‘I think our low profile is well and truly blown,’ said Clare. ‘At least among your neighbours. But who cares? They don’t know Callum or Evan. Hopefully, none of them follows Mum’s menopause advice online. And there’s something to celebrate,’ she reminded me. ‘Talk about a silver lining. If you’d gone to Majorca, if we hadn’t been sitting in the garden, the entire building might have burned down. That lady upstairs – the weatherman’s gran – might have been killed. If you can’t celebrate something like that . . .’
It wasn’t that I didn’t think it was worth celebrating. It was more that I was embarrassed at the thought that these people who had been strangers so recently were going to see what Clare and I had created in the backyard. The kids from next door might have thought it was a great idea to have a giant sandpit, but what would this bunch of metropolitan grown-ups think? They would think we were nuts, I was sure.
But it seemed that everyone was prepared to be more open-minded about my birthday beach than I might have hoped. When Tabby and Henry returned to our house with enough sausages to feed 101 Dalmatians, they had changed out of their work clothes and into Hawaiian shirts and shorts. Tabby set to work getting the barbecue lit, while Henry showed Clare how to make his own version of sangria, which contained three times the copious amount of brandy she usually added.
Nelly and her teenage son, Terry, arrived soon afterwards, carrying two dishes covered in foil containing the kind of carefully marinated meat you only ever see on cookery programmes. Terry then went back across the street to fetch their grill, to give us extra space to cook. Nelly also brought a delicious potato salad, made to her mother’s recipe, which had been handed down to her by half a dozen grandmothers before, and a whole tray full of canapés.
‘I made them for a wedding on Saturday. It was cancelled. Turns out the groom tried to seduce the bride’s sister at a lap-dancing club on his stag night.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘He didn’t know the bride’s sister worked in the club. Neither did her parents.’
‘How awful.’
‘Oh, I could tell you some stories that would make your eyes pop out. I had a funeral cancelled once when it turned out that the body in the coffin had been misidentified. That turned into a murder inquiry.’
Nelly was turning out to be very good value indeed.
When Jim didn’t appear within half an hour of her arrival, it was Nelly who insisted on heading back over the street to make sure he knew he really was invited and there was no need to be shy. She duly returned with Jim on her arm. He wore a jacket and tie, and had brought with him his Jack Russell terrier, Alfred, who was a huge hit with Sally and Dexter. The children were up way later than they should have been, but after the excitement of the fire, Rosie knew she had no chance of getting those two to go back to bed.
Nelly’s son provided the mu
sic. Clare approved. There was plenty of emo, at least until Nelly insisted on swapping her son’s mix for some nice Michael Bublé. Rosie brought lights in the form of a couple of hurricane lamps from her own garden. Clare dug out some old Christmas lights from a box of random ‘useful’ bits and pieces that Dad had foisted on me during one of his clear-outs and strung them around one end of the backyard, plugging them in through the kitchen window. Jim spent twenty minutes tweaking all the loose bulbs and eventually they worked.
The other occupant of my building – the guy who lived on the top floor and tumbled down the stairs every morning – got home at half past eight. Astonished to smell the smoke and see Mrs Kenman’s door with an enormous hole in it, he came downstairs to find out what had been going on. His name was Charles. He joined the festivities, as did his girlfriend, Suze, who generously allowed the chicken she had bought for their supper to be jointed, rolled in Nelly’s special mix of spices and added to the barbecue.
Charles and Suze were followed by Jason from the builder’s yard, who came bearing Malibu.
‘Well, hell-oooo,’ said Clare, in an embarrassing parody of that chap from the Carry On films.
‘I thought it would be just us three,’ he said to me and my sister upon seeing the crowd. Apparently, Clare had sent him a text telling him to drop by to look at the results of her photo shoot.
‘We’ve had a very exciting evening,’ Clare explained. ‘Lots to celebrate.’
Jason agreed to stay and, upon hearing that Mrs Kenman’s door needed a small repair, went out to his van and returned with everything he needed to patch the hole up. Clare took him a few glasses of sangria while he worked.
‘I can’t believe you texted the guy from the builder’s yard,’ I hissed at her as we passed in the hallway.
‘I invited him for you,’ she said.
‘I’m not on the market.’
‘You should be.’
Thankfully, we were interrupted by Sally, in search of the bathroom, before we could have a disagreement.
The food – when Henry and Tabby finally managed to get the barbecue started – was great. The sangria was lethal. But the party really picked up when Clare announced the good news, which arrived via a text from one of the paramedics, that Mrs Kenman was already awake and feeling much better and would be home within a couple of days. That prompted a toast from Jim, both to Mrs Kenman’s health and to our brave rescue attempt.
Clare joined Jim in a little dance of celebration around the paddling pool. Tabby pulled Nelly to her feet and followed suit. Rosie bumped hips with Tabby and Henry. The children were making the most of their late-night freedom. The party dissolved into laughter as a tango across the sand ended up with Tabby on his backside in the paddling pool.
But there was one more guest to come.
‘I hope I’m not too late,’ he said.
I almost didn’t recognise the paramedic now that he had changed out of his overalls and into a Hawaiian shirt. I must have looked less friendly than I felt because his face took on a nervous expression and he said, ‘Your sister invited me.’
‘She did?’
‘I did.’
Clare was already behind us in the corridor. She took the paramedic by the sleeve and dragged him in.
‘Don’t just stand there. Come in. Gosh, don’t you look different in your real clothes? Very nice. Glad you could make it. This is Tom,’ she said to the assembled party-goers in the yard. ‘He’s the paramedic who carried Mrs Kenman all the way down the stairs.’
‘He could give me a fireman’s lift anytime,’ Rosie whispered in my ear. She had a point. I hadn’t taken very much notice earlier, but now that I had a proper chance to look at him, he was like a paramedic imagined by central casting. Clean-cut and friendly-looking.
‘Nice hair,’ Nelly murmured. ‘You should find out if he has a girlfriend.’
Jim proposed another toast to the brave gentlemen of the ambulance service. At least, we all assumed that was what he proposed. He was getting quietly sloshed.
‘Nice shorts,’ said Tabby.
They had clearly been shopping in the same place. Tom’s shorts were a red version of Tabby’s green pair.
‘Welcome to our beach party,’ said Clare, sweeping her arm around the yard, which, with its twinkling lights and smiling people on the sand, could not have looked more different than the dismal grey square I had lived with for three years. All that was missing was the sound of crashing waves.
‘Come on, everybody,’ said Clare. ‘I need to take a group picture.’
She motioned everyone into the centre of the sand. She balanced her camera on the top of the old coal shed so that she could put it on timer, then rushed back into the middle of the group. Tom stood beside me.
‘Your sister is really something,’ he said.
She was. She had pulled a party out of thin air and it was one of the best I had ever seen.
The dancing continued. Clare bounced around taking snaps. Tom and I were leaning against the coal shed in companionable silence, but Clare insisted we take to the floor too. She pulled me by the hand. Tom gamely jigged from foot to foot. Though I’d had enough sangria to kill an elephant, dancing next to him made me suddenly shy. He had a lovely face, a friendly smile.
But where there’s alcohol, there’s always, eventually, male nudity. Tabby and Henry took their shirts off. They both had baby beer bellies but seemed very happy to let it all hang out. Nelly and Rosie catcalled. Jason had the moves of someone who took his clothes off for a living, which, it turned out, he did. When he wasn’t delivering building supplies, he moonlighted as a stripper for hen nights. Even Jim got to his feet and provocatively loosened his tie.
‘Come on, Tom,’ said Clare. ‘Let’s see what you’ve got underneath those flowers.’
Rosie and Clare whooped as, without unbuttoning the shirt first, Tom pulled it off over his head, revealing the kind of torso that would have made Michelangelo’s David want to put on a T-shirt and hide. Nelly gave an ear-splitting whistle.
Rosie and I found ourselves in the middle of a triple-decker man sandwich. Clare clapped and cheered and took more photos.
‘I hope none of these are going on Facebook,’ said Rosie, as she collapsed giggling onto a deckchair.
‘All of these are going on Facebook,’ said Clare. ‘These boys are too gorgeous not to share. Shake that booty, Jason. Give me something worth putting on YouTube.’
Clare seemed to be getting on very well with Jason. The monosyllabic truck driver turned out to be a very different creature after dark. Changed out of his work gear, he looked like an Italian playboy and he had the same kind of charm. He took my sister’s hand and pulled her into the middle of the sand, where they danced barefoot. Clare threw back her head and laughed. She looked absolutely beautiful. In her element, really. Her face had taken on a look that I hadn’t seen in a long while – carefree and much, much younger than the girl who had come to water my plants and had slumped at the kitchen table just a few days ago. She was having a whale of a time.
And then it was midnight.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ said Clare, ‘may I interrupt proceedings for just a moment to propose a toast? It’s turned midnight and that means that my darling little sister has just turned thirty!’
Sally and Dexter insisted on singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to me. I was showered with hugs and kisses. It was hard to keep from bursting into tears, especially when Rosie presented me with the cake that her children had insisted on making for me.
‘We could only find seven candles,’ said Sally, ‘but we know you’re much older than that.’
So much for my plan to keep quiet and well hidden during my staycation. The noise from our party could probably have been heard halfway across London. But I found I didn’t much care if anyone found out I wasn’t in Majorca that night. My sister and I had saved a life and made a whole bunch of new friends in the process. It was almost worth being dumped for. Almost. I blew the candles out.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Not long after Clare announced that I was officially old, people started to drift away. It was way past Sally and Dexter’s bedtime. Sally protested that she wanted to stay up all night – just this once. She’d be good for ever – but Dexter had already fallen asleep on his mother’s lap and had to be carried next door with the help of Nelly’s son. Nelly herself saw Jim and his dog back across the road. Henry and Tabby staggered down the road to their place, taking the last of the burnt sausages with them.
‘For the perfect hangover breakfast,’ Henry explained.
I had a feeling he would need it. Henry had sunk more sangria than a hen party in Magaluf, despite the fact it was a school night. Tabby, too, was cross-eyed with inebriation, but he promised he would be back the following weekend to mend the puncture in my bicycle tyre.
‘I think he likes you,’ said Charles’s girlfriend, Suze, conspiratorially. Suze, Nelly, my sister . . . it seemed that everyone was keen to set me up with someone.
I went inside to start the washing-up while Tom, Clare and Jason set about tidying up the yard. It wasn’t long before Tom came inside. He joined me at the kitchen sink, where I was dealing with those things that wouldn’t fit into the dishwasher.
‘I’ll help you wash up,’ he said.
‘No need,’ I told him. ‘It’s almost done. Besides, you’ve got an early start tomorrow.’
‘That’s true,’ he said, ‘but it’s my last day before I go on holiday for a fortnight, so I’m not too worried about being tired. Anyway, I’d like to help you wash up. I enjoy washing up. Really.’
‘OK.’
I let him help me. He could dry the bigger dishes. Nelly had left behind one huge, heavy glass salad bowl that I was terrified of dropping on the tiled floor. It looked expensive. With his big hands, Tom could handle that with ease.
What I Did On My Holidays Page 15
