The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Because he’s not. He’s nuts, for starters, plus he has a kid. A child, for heaven’s sake. Anyway, there’s Caleb to consider.

  I thought you weren’t considering Caleb at all?

  ‘She’s got lots of tricks,’ Tom was telling his father, ‘and lots of names, too.’

  ‘I have,’ said Pip in Martha’s voice. ‘It means never a dull moment for me. If I’m boring myself, I just become Martha. If Martha’s getting on my nerves, I summon up Dr Pippity. If Dr Pippity is tired, then I’m just plain old me.’

  See! Zac thought, with a degree of relief. She is an utter weirdo. With what is probably a sectionable personality disorder, too.

  Yet he couldn’t help but think that she wasn’t ‘plain’ in the slightest, whatever she might protest to the contrary. And however lurid her clothing and daft her make-up.

  ‘Most people are locked up if they have as many personalities as me!’ Pip said, right on cue, but to Tom and not Zac.

  See, Zac thought, vindicated, she’s barking.

  ‘I must be off,’ said Pip. Then she looked at Tom and took a sniff at her arm. She wrinkled her nose: ‘Yeuch, I am off – past my sell-by date!’ Tom giggled, Zac tried not to. She stopped herself from saying ‘not really’ to the bloke lest he thought she actually did smell, though why she cared what he thought she didn’t know.

  ‘Watch how fast I can run!’ Tom boasted. Watching him belt off towards the deer enclosure, Pip marvelled how quickly children could bounce back from a knock. She was also quite charmed to see how his father timed him.

  ‘Two revolting kids were picking on him,’ Pip told his father when Tom was out of earshot, ‘little sods.’

  Zac nodded gravely, keeping an eye on the second hand of his watch. ‘I bet he bore up OK,’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ Pip confirmed, ‘but they were vile.’

  ‘Poor old Tom,’ said Zac. ‘It’s awful to say he’s used to it – but he is. And for the most part, it doesn’t happen often.’

  ‘Well, I’m off,’ said Pip, despite a perceptible loiter to the contrary which infuriated her.

  ‘Yeah, good idea,’ Zac said, with a derisory sniff in her direction, ‘you do whiff a bit.’

  Why did you say that?

  Why did he say that?

  Why the fuck did I say that?

  Your sense of humour is so dry it’s positively parched, Zac. Backtrack.

  But he’s standing there, an unfortunate and involuntary smirk stuck to his face while he racks his brain for a way to minimize the insult without drawing more attention to it. It’s taking him too long. See, Pip is smiling cursorily but she’s backing off.

  She must think I am an absolute arse, now. I was only trying to pick up on her own joke.

  Pip didn’t see it that way. Why should she? After all, look what she’s had to go by from Zac before.

  What a dick. And whether it’s a lack of manners or a warped sense of humour on his part, I can’t say I really care.

  ‘How fast?’ said Tom, panting.

  ‘There and back?’ Zac asked. ‘Two minutes forty in all.’

  ‘Where’s my clown?’

  ‘Gone home, little ’un.’

  Tom wasn’t too upset. He now felt sure he’d see her again. Dr Pippity. Or the Martha one with more make-up and fewer clothes. Zac reckoned so, too. And didn’t quite know how he felt about it, now that he’d made a prat of himself for the second, even third, time. Hastily, he reminded himself she was a clown, and wasn’t that an odd thing to choose to be? And hadn’t clowns frightened him when he was young? He thought of Juliana; her long legs and no holds barred. Then he considered Clowngirl with her stripy tights and daft voices.

  Well, not that he’s to know, but the next time Zac sees Pip, he simply won’t recognize her at all.

  NINE

  ‘How was your visit today?’

  ‘It was good, thanks – tiring as ever, but rewarding.’

  Bloody hell! Caleb’s managed it! Pip has granted him – or, rather, allowed herself – a couple of drinks after work. She’s chosen a Sea Breeze and she’s sipping it demurely. Ironically, today’s one Tuesday when Pip needn’t have worried about being on her own – the messages left on her mobile during her hospital rounds had Cat clamouring for Pip to cook dinner (and she’d provide plenty of wine), Fen imploring her to come and see the new Julia Roberts film (and she’d buy the popcorn) and Megan begging her to come and meet Dominic (and thus advise her whether to proceed). All three presumed Pip would be free for them.

  sorry, already have plans she texts back to each of them, adding a few more kisses for Cat than the others. They’d just have to manage without her – now there was a novel notion! Cat was depressed about this, Fen was slightly pissed off and Megan was downright devastated, but Pip turned her phone off. Good job, really. One call taken from a friend or sibling in need and she’d have left the pub and Caleb without a second thought. But she’s happily ensconced in an old Windsor chair, sitting by the window with the slow sun of the early evening drifting in and bestowing aesthetic merit on all it glances off. Pip watches Caleb as he returns from the bar with peanuts and crisps. The light is catching his features, accentuating his cheek-bones and strong jaw line, spinning a little gold from his chocolate eyes. Pip feels content with her decision to have him for company.

  ‘Anything to forgo rush hour on the Misery line,’ she had said nonchalantly half an hour ago in answer to his suggestion of a quick drink. He’d been ready and keen to head off right there and then. Pip had laughed. ‘Would you mind awfully if I changed and took my slap off? We might not get served otherwise.’ Caleb had regarded her with the sober contemplation he bestowed on his patients. ‘Nah,’ he said dismissively, at length, ‘you look fab and funky as you are. Let’s go.’ And with that, he had forcibly marched her down the stairs to the ground floor, out through the foyer, past the ambulance bay, through the courtyard where the more able-bodied patients took fresh air, beyond the hospital perimeters and out into the world. She did, however, manage to remove her false nose and slip it, sleight of hand, up her sleeve and then into her pocket.

  And now she’s sitting in the Windsor chair, across from Dr Caleb Simmons who is straddling a stool and presenting her with peanuts and crisps to accompany her Sea Breeze. He’s drinking down a pint of lager. She can see that paediatrics is thirsty work. He’s tucking into the snacks, too. ‘I hardly ever find the time to even grab a sandwich on the hoof,’ he explains, almost apologetically. Because for the next few minutes his mouth is full of peanuts, all that’s possible is small talk – but it relaxes Pip and she’s pleased to find out minutiae like his age (thirty-four), how long he’s worked at St Bea’s (three years), where he lives (Hoxton) and that he’s going on holiday in a month to Belize (with a friend). He doesn’t like to speak with his mouth full so he answers Pip economically and doesn’t ask her anything. Much to her relief.

  ‘Would you like another drink?’ Pip asks, because she would certainly like another Sea Breeze. When she returns to the table, the snacks are finished and the packets have been meticulously folded into compact triangular pockets. A finicky process that strikes her as being at odds with Caleb’s easygoing personality. She doesn’t dwell on it. Actually, she is rather enjoying his company and would be happy for them to make an entire evening of it.

  Caleb buys the next round.

  ‘Here’s to the clown doctors,’ he toasts, ‘and all that you do for the hospital.’

  Pip is touched. She raises her glass and chinks his. ‘Do you feel we make a difference – truly?’ she asks. ‘We’ve only been at St Bea’s six months.’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Caleb replies. ‘You have to remember that though the kids know we are here to make them better, they also associate us with discomfort and pain what with the procedures and operations and drugs we administer. You lot provide fun and relief – you’re the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down.’

  ‘That’s great to hear,’ says Pip, chinki
ng glasses. ‘The Renee Foundation is placing clown doctors in Manchester and Glasgow this autumn – that’ll be seven hospitals in the UK.’

  ‘How did you get into it?’ Caleb asked, because he’d never really thought about it and it now struck him as rather intriguing.

  ‘I was working as a clown already,’ Pip explained.

  ‘Odd,’ Caleb mused, ‘but interesting. How did you get into clowning?’

  ‘Oh,’ said Pip breezily, ‘I think I was possibly born one. No,’ she corrected, ‘necessity dictated I become one very early on – family traumas and all that, so creating laughter and distractions became my responsibility and, soon enough, my forte.’

  There wasn’t a lot Caleb could say to that, so he nodded in what he hoped, by virtue of his bedside-manner physiognomy, was an understanding way.

  ‘Plus,’ Pip continued, quite proud of her c.v., ‘when I was little, a retired clown lived nearby and he used to paint my face for me. I’ve barely modified it since then.’

  They were suddenly aware that Pip was still in her slap and that the other drinkers were casting inquisitive glances in her direction. Pip didn’t mind that she was the centre of some quiet attention; for once, she quite liked it. ‘I have my own egg, you know,’ she announced proudly. ‘Clowns register their clown faces by painting the design on an egg shell,’ she explained, ‘so if you want to check whether I’m kosher, you can visit the Clowns Gallery in Hackney where my egg is displayed alongside hundreds of others.’

  ‘So there’s a whole clown community?’ Caleb asked.

  ‘There’s even a clowns’ church,’ Pip informed him, ‘with a service of thanksgiving for the gift of laughter and the life of Joseph Grimaldi on the first Sunday of February. If I was more God-fearing, I’d go,’ she added almost apologetically.

  ‘I had no idea,’ Caleb mused. ‘I guess I just thought of clowns nowadays as being slightly dodgy entertainers – perhaps comics who aren’t funny enough or acrobats who aren’t accomplished enough or actors who aren’t skilled enough. I imagined you all worked in isolation, leading odd lives, generally hiding behind your masks.’

  ‘I’m a very capable acrobat,’ Pip proclaimed, ‘and I turned down drama college for circus school. I trained under a brilliant French clown called Manouche. I’m also pretty good at trapeze. Clowning is an art, you know,’ she continued earnestly. ‘It requires physical skill, dramatic ability, imagination with a sense of the comic and, perhaps most importantly, an understanding of human nature.’

  ‘Did you run away to the circus?’ Caleb asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you seen Cirque du Soleil?’

  ‘A billion times.’

  ‘Do you smoke?’ Caleb asked, offering her a cigarette and lighting one for himself.

  ‘Not if I’m sober,’ Pip replied, feeling on the way to woozy but thankfully still at the stage of refusing cigarettes. ‘Look at you, Doctor!’ she remarked. ‘Don’t you know fags’ll kill you?’

  ‘Totally,’ Caleb said darkly, ‘that’s why I do it.’

  Pip took a sip of her drink and thought that she really shouldn’t think he looked sexy the way he drew on the cigarette.

  ‘Ever eaten fire?’ Caleb asked, taking a deep drag.

  ‘No,’ said Pip, ‘but I’ve played with it.’ She was rather pleased with that answer.

  ‘So have I,’ Caleb said somewhat gravely. ‘Do you juggle?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So do I,’ said Caleb, rather darkly. Pip decided swiftly not to read into this so she suggested they go for food.

  ‘What do you like?’ Caleb wondered.

  ‘I don’t know,’ Pip said. ‘What do you fancy?’

  He drew on his cigarette and regarded her levelly. ‘I fancy you,’ he said, with intense eye contact. Pip giggled though she cursed herself immediately for doing so. She felt nervous – and it irked her.

  ‘I want to get out of these clothes,’ she said, not intending innuendo but quite enjoying Caleb’s raised eyebrow and sly smile.

  Back at St Bea’s, Pip changed and then they had sushi in a place off Liverpool Street. It probably wasn’t a good idea to mix sake with the Sea Breezes she’d had earlier. Certainly not a good idea for it to lead to her happily accepting cigarettes from her date. Though the second made her feel quite queasy, being in the company of a doctor put her at ease. So she had a few puffs of a third but politely declined the suggestion of a nightcap.

  ‘I’m doing face painting in Brent Cross shopping centre tomorrow – I’ll need a steady hand,’ she justified, ‘and then I have a birthday party to do in Hampstead Garden Suburb at tea-time – and I’ll need a clear head if I’m going to do a handstand and God knows what else.’

  ‘Another time?’ Dr Simmons proposed.

  ‘Sure,’ Pip heard herself saying with no pause for thought, ‘why not?’

  What a gent – hailing a black cab and escorting her halfway across London, telling the cabby to wait, please, as he took Pip to her front door.

  ‘Great evening,’ Pip thanked him, wondering in her somewhat boozy and brazen state if he might kiss her; hoping that he would, thinking she really ought to maintain eye contact to encourage this to happen. She looked up from her bag, from pretending to fumble for keys. Lovely eyes, she thought, hers darting away from his; at first shyly, soon enough coquettishly.

  ‘Good-night, then,’ he said, luring her eyes back to his as his face came close to hers. He kissed her gently on the cheek, his lips lightly brushing the corner of her mouth.

  ‘Night,’ Pip all but whispered, keys in her hand, her eyes locked on to his. She lifted her chin and parted her lips and immediately, Caleb’s mouth was on hers and swiftly, his tongue was flickering at her lips. And suddenly, her tongue was in his mouth. The kiss slowed and intensified. He tasted of soy sauce and lager. He tasted of being a man, a doctor called Caleb Simmons. When their mouths separated, suddenly the sound of the taxi’s chuntering diesel engine seemed very loud, very near, somewhat impatient.

  ‘Shall I send the cab away?’ Caleb murmured, using his little finger to lift a lick of hair from the corner of her mouth, using his thumb to smooth it behind her ear. ‘Shall I come in?’

  Pip wanted more kissing. In fact, she wanted a lot more. All of him. All over her. Rude sex would be very nice, thank you very much. They could begin in the cramped porch, start ripping at each other’s clothing in the sitting-room, be down to underwear, dry humping against the wall of the corridor, then arrive at her bed buck naked and raring, even roaring, to go. She had the desire. She had the imagination. Thanks to the Sea Breezes and sake, she had the confidence. And in her bedside drawer, she even had the condoms. The sex would be tantalizingly urgent and over quickly. A fuck. But they’d rest up a little and then do it again, more languid, lasting longer, going further, going deeper, coming to the same conclusion (simultaneously, if they could synchronize).

  Caleb was fondling her breasts through her clothing and Pip, with his thigh between hers, was rubbing herself rhythmically against his leg as they continued to kiss. The cab’s engine was clicketing, the meter running. Sex was an imminent possibility. A pricey one, thought Caleb, estimating the cab fare whilst continuing to tongue Pip. Perhaps too costly, thought Pip, pulling away though it took some strength, mental and physical.

  Pip sent Caleb on his way. ‘Another time,’ she said, placing her finger on the tip of his nose, then kissing him softly there.

  ‘Sure,’ said Caleb with his easy smile. ‘Good-night, Pip.’

  ‘Night, Dr Simmons,’ Pip said, waiting till he’d climbed the basement stairwell and was up on the street, smiling down at her, before she opened her front door and let herself in.

  Of course she wasn’t going to let him in – not physically, certainly not metaphysically. And it didn’t really have much to do with her busy schedule the following day. There hadn’t been a man in her house, let alone her bed, to say nothing of her life, for months. And even then, she didn’t truly let t
hat one in. While Caleb’s osculation had made her horny as hell, her pride and her privacy had kept him at bay. Anyway, as she often proclaimed to her friends and sisters, there were always vibrators. So, as Caleb headed for Hoxton in the cab, his hand lolling over his hard-on, Pip went to bed with a rather peculiar-looking contraption which made strange whirring sounds at inopportune moments. It did do, however, exactly what it said on the packaging.

  The only thing about having an orgasm with a battery-operated device is that post-coitally one is hugely aware of one’s solitude. I guess sometimes having a bloke in your bed is preferable, even if he does roll over, fart and fall dead asleep.

  But Pip makes light of this. Even to herself. She sits up in bed and takes two Nurofen with three glasses of water. She cannot afford to be remotely hungover when she awakes. Tomorrow is a very full day but one when she’ll see off most of this month’s mortgage payment. She switches off the light but stays sitting up. She’s spared no thought for Fen or Cat or Megan, hasn’t a clue how their evenings turned out. Though she tries to conjure up an image of Caleb, strangely enough it is that odd stalker bloke who slopes across her mind’s eye. Vividly. She’s slightly taken aback that he should accost her so.

  But there again, she thinks to herself, he is my stalker.

  Nevertheless, she wonders why she’s conjured him up.

  I guess his presence serves to emphasize just what a nice chap, by contrast, Caleb appears to be. Well-adjusted. Quite conventional. Nice manners. No kids. Little baggage. Friendly.

  ‘Pretty normal, really,’ Pip whispers into the darkness, slipping down under her duvet. And, of course, Pip is very earnest about the importance of being normal.

  TEN

  When Pip isn’t working hard earning her wage by making people laugh, she spends much of her spare time looking after her sisters and caring for her friends. Invariably, this requires making them laugh, too. For free. Regardless of overtime and weekends. And then there’s Django; Pip feels compelled to lighten his load. He’s worried about Cat and it is to Pip whom he turns for updates and reassurances. Her phone bill is huge. As is her supermarket bill on account of all the soup she makes for Cat’s freezer and the luxurious treats she buys to cajole her youngest sister’s appetite.