The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Pip has grown up believing that she is her sisters’ keeper. For one who spends an inordinate amount of her day falling about and fooling about, her duties as clown and eldest sister are responsibilities she takes very seriously. She’s the Great Looker-After. It’s not that her friends and family forget that sometimes perhaps she, too, would benefit from some TLC, actually it wouldn’t cross their minds that she’d ever need any. Good Lord, Philippa McCabe is never blue! She’s never had a crisis in her life! She’s so capable, so happy-go-lucky, she orders her life beautifully, she’s totally in control! However, there is small print to such compliments and it reads that actually Pip McCabe is never allowed to be anything other than happy herself, therefore available for others unconditionally whensoever she’s needed. The world would stop turning if Pip cried ‘help’. What would Cat do? Or Fen? Or Django? They wouldn’t know what to do and, quite frankly, they wouldn’t like it. Pip’s needs would be their loss. They’d be at a loss; utterly.

  For the most part, Pip doesn’t feel used or hard done by. Quietly, we can surmise that her eagerness to be the Great Looker-After and Dispenser of Laughter in some way guards against any enquiries into her own welfare. Pip wants everyone to be safe and happy, but she is also aware that, for as long as they are the ones in need, they won’t have the wherewithal to probe or pry into her well-being.

  Consequently, she hasn’t told anyone about Caleb. She’ll argue that there’s nothing to tell. Perhaps, though, it’s to avoid being questioned. Pip doesn’t have any answers. And she doesn’t like to be questioned. Nor has she told them about Zac – what on earth is there to tell? After all, she doesn’t yet know even his name – and she can’t very well refer to him as Stalker Bloke. Anyway, quietly she’s aware that she’s elaborated to herself, for her own amusement, the extent of his interest in her. Deep down she knows he’s not a stalker, just a bloke who keeps bumping into her, whose social graces are clumsy. Pip believes it is preferable to keep Caleb and Zac to herself, so she can indulge in imaginative tangents whilst she’s having a bath or travelling to work; sneak in a little day-dream whilst Megan or Cat or Fen discuss this grave matter or that. Fundamentally, though, Pip knows that to expose the bare facts surrounding either man would reveal that there’s not much there at all, really.

  There’s been little development between Caleb and Pip since their late-night doorstep embrace. Dr Pippity’s visits to St Bea’s don’t always coincide with Dr Simmons’s ward rounds and when they are on the same ward at the same time, both clown and doctor are too focused on their patients and their jobs to sneak away for even a quick hi-how’s-it-going, let alone consult diaries and arrange dates or steal a kiss, for goodness’ sake. Yesterday, he pinched her bottom just before she changed wards. She was quite taken aback. She felt compromised – believed his behaviour to be unprofessional. Fortunately, she was just about to go into the washroom to disinfect her props and wash her hands, so the symbolic wiping of a paper towel against her posterior restored her composure and enabled her to continue with her ward rounds in fine style.

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t pinch my bottom again,’ she warned, somewhat prissily, when she came across him having a cigarette in the ambulance bay as she made her way to the tube.

  He looked crestfallen. ‘What, never ever again? But it’s so damn pinchable, Pip.’ He stood up and came close. ‘In fact, I’m glad I have a fag in one hand and the Telegraph in the other or I’d be in full fondle of your buttocks right now.’

  Don’t bloody laugh at his lousy rubbish joke. He’s incorrigible. Don’t even bloody smile.

  ‘You’re incorrigible!’ Pip protested, frustrated that she was so easily flattered and praying she wasn’t blushing.

  ‘You’re blushing,’ Caleb said. ‘And I’ll be happy to bet dinner that you’re not blushing on those cheeks alone,’ he remarked, kissing them for emphasis, ‘or that it’s merely these lips that are moist right now,’ he whispered, kissing her mouth.

  Pip McCabe was truly stuck for words. His blatancy, his lewdness, was an unexpected turn-on. What was she meant to say? Should she admit that, yes, she really did want to go to bed with him, and judging by the state of her knickers, why didn’t they just forget the whole dinner-wager thing and cab it back to one of their flats right now? Or should she act all demure? Or should she play hard to get but flirtatious with it?

  For Christ’s bloody sake, this is the kind of advice I dispense to my sisters and friends the whole time. I’m forever helping them to compose fabulous soliloquies. And now I’m standing here like a lemon, gawping and speechless, flushed, drooling and damp. I can’t practise what I preach because I can’t remember what on earth it is I advocate.

  ‘Cat got your tongue?’ Caleb asked slyly, raising one side of his mouth into a sly smile.

  Pip McCabe regarded him. Momentarily, her thoughts wandered to her sister, Cat. She ought to call her. She really ought. Later.

  Now, however, she tilted her head and placed her hands on her hips. ‘Actually,’ she heard herself say, ‘there’s a pussy who’ll have your tongue in a flash.’

  Jesus, Pip! Was that you? You minx!

  God knows where that came from! How can I switch from pissed off with him for pinching my bum to suggesting cunnilingus? I should go. I really should. I have no idea whether this is a good idea – and that is the point precisely. I’ll go. I’ll go and see Cat.

  ‘Dinner, then?’ said Caleb. Now it was his turn to hope that his excitement wasn’t too obvious and he nonchalantly held his Telegraph against his bulging groin as a precaution.

  She’s speaking my language. And it’s an invitation beyond my expectations at this stage.

  Though Pip’s mind was flooded with half-sentences of ‘I should …’ and ‘I’ll phone Cat to …’ and ‘For God’s sake, I really …’ and ‘Django won’t be …’, her voice had a mind of its own. ‘Your place or mine?’ Pip asked. ‘And let’s not bother with dinner.’

  Time will tell whether it was a good thing or bad that a seamless, Hollywoodesque scene-change straight to the bedroom – to humping, writhing, sighing, happy, glistening bodies – was denied them. Caleb was on a late shift that night. And the next night, Pip had promised to accompany Fen to the birthday party of the editor at her work who she was furtively starting to see. So Caleb suggested Saturday night and Pip accepted as demurely as she could.

  However, the verbal acceptance of carnal relations between the two of them – the acknowledgement of the imminence of this – took Pip a good few strides on from her senseless celibacy. Her attitude changed and with it, her demeanour. Quite possibly, the subtle but significant shift altered the potency of her pheromones. Or at the least, simply bestowed an allure of availability and willingness.

  Little did she know that before Caleb would get her into bed, she’d have been bought drinks by Zac and would have accepted a date from him.

  ELEVEN

  When Pip saw Zac across a crowded bar, she was hardly going to tell her sisters ‘Oh look, there’s my stalker, yes, I suppose he is quite handsome but don’t be fooled by good looks because actually he’s rude and odd, to say nothing of the baggage he lugs around, brimming with an ex-wife and sick son.’

  There again, nor was Pip likely to reveal that, in the next twenty-four hours, there was a strong possibility that she’d be in bed with a doctor from St Bea’s with whom she’d already had great aural sex.

  But Zac was there that night and Pip was quite taken aback that she should be amused rather than disconcerted, perhaps just a little excited rather than unnerved, that she had a certain pride rather than horror that the man over there, yes, the good-looking one in the navy jeans and navy shirt and spectacles that used to be free on the NHS but no doubt now cost a small fortune, was her own personal stalker.

  Perhaps there was a part of her that would quite like to say ‘See that bloke? I can’t get away from him.’ Not because she sought her sisters’ protection – because she didn’t really fear him at all and
of course she could look after herself well enough, thank you very much – but because actually, she was rather proud that her so-called stalker was so easy on the eye. However, duty called and decreed that the only blokes who warranted her focus were the one Fen was considering sleeping with, and the one Cat was deludedly desperate to have back. Tonight was about encouraging Fen to go for it and persuading Cat to leave well alone.

  No. Pip wouldn’t be saying a word to her sisters. She couldn’t possibly. What – have the focus on Pip McCabe? Put herself in the hot seat and under the spotlight? Good God, no. No, thank you. Pip’s a great believer in there being a Time and a Place; frequently she uses the unsuitability of one or the other as a prophetic sign or else a perfect excuse. Soho, in the hurl of her sister’s potential boyfriend’s birthday party, provided her with neither the time for Zac nor the place to mention him to anyone. Ah, but there again, Pip, nor would a quiet night at your flat, or Fen’s or Cat’s. And a weekend up in Derbyshire wouldn’t be the right forum either, would it? Over the phone wouldn’t do. Nor would the grapevine. The time and place are rarely aligned in Pip’s eye.

  So, Pip sipped champagne in Soho, providing morale support for one sister (Fen’s morals were, for the most part, in good shape) and utter support for the other (Cat had had a bad day after quite a good week, and the champagne was making her slightly unsteady on her feet). It had taken all manner of cajoling – including Pip walking on her hands at Cat’s flat earlier – to persuade the youngest McCabe to come out with them. And now look at her, bedecked in Whistles, partaking of champagne and eliciting a few appreciative glances from present company. Pip was well aware that champagne could be a dangerous thing. A little was a very good idea, too much could be disastrous, the distinction between the two could be perilously indistinct.

  ‘What do you think of the Holden guy then?’ Cat whispered, nudging Pip and giving a surreptitious nod in Fen’s direction.

  ‘Well, he’s well-spoken,’ Pip analysed, ‘charming, too. Obviously fairly well-to-do, not that it should count for a jot. I’ve been watching him and he gazes at Fen at any opportunity. That’s good. She’s not one to waste time on someone who feels anything less than absolutely smitten by her. I think he could well be worth her while. Good luck to her.’

  ‘I like champagne,’ giggled Cat, who simply thought Matt hunky, Fen lucky and that they should go for it, ‘and I like those dingle-dangle things.’

  ‘Looks like Fen’s on her way to Matt’s dingle-dangle thing,’ said Pip.

  Cat whooped with laughter. ‘I meant the lights here!’ Pip knew perfectly well what her sister had been alluding to, but she also knew that her misinterpretation would cause merriment. Which it did. Pip raised her glass to the lighting – interestingly constructed multifaceted cubes of coloured Perspex floating with no visible means of support, diffusing light into colour and mood. Cat chinked glasses with Pip, her very own visible means of support.

  ‘I like the padded walls,’ Pip remarked and, to test her theory, Cat gently nodded her body against them. Pip sat down and patted the space next to her: ‘But Jesus, these seats are uncomfortable.’

  Cat snuggled against her sister. ‘Is there any more champagne?’ she wondered out loud. ‘I love champagne.’ She paused, looking temporarily alarmed. ‘I think I might be having fun.’ She looked at Pip with her brow concertinaed. ‘Am I? Is that OK?’

  ‘Why don’t we discuss it over more champers – I’ll go and find some,’ said Pip, delighted that her sister had found something that she loved and was halfway on the road to having fun.

  ‘What do you think?’ Fen hissed, catching Pip’s arm as she embarked on her champagne quest.

  ‘I think free champagne is a fabulous idea but I think it’s all gone,’ Pip said. ‘Certainly it’s gone to Cat’s head.’

  ‘I mean about him. About Matt?’ Fen asked wide-eyed and close to, eagerly awaiting her sister’s response.

  ‘I think any man who has a party in a room with padded walls is very considerate indeed,’ Pip colluded, ‘and any man who stands all those bottles of champagne must be worth keeping.’ She observed her sister. ‘And I think any man who sets his attentions on my sister has impeccable taste. And he’d better treat you very nicely or the dingle-dangles will get it.’ Pip winked at Fen and wandered off in search of champagne.

  ‘Dingle-dangles?’ Fen murmured to herself.

  There is no more free champagne. Pip decides, though, that champagne is what Cat must drink. Not because Cat loves the stuff, but because Pip won’t have her mix her drinks; she’s mixed up enough as it is. If it’s champagne that’s giving her joy, champagne she shall have. To the bar she goes.

  And that’s when she comes across Zac.

  She takes her place along the counter right next to him. Their elbows touch. But it is only when the barman allows her to queue-jump that she’s aware of him. Zac stares at her, irritated. Pip glowers back. Then she quickly looks away.

  Fuck! It’s my stalker.

  It is indeed. And he’s pissed off. He’s been brandishing a twenty-pound note in the direction of the barman for ages without success.

  ‘What’s a guy gotta do to get a drink round here? Sport a cleavage?’ he grumbles with a touch of wit that the noise of the bar renders inaudible.

  Grumpy sod, Pip thinks. ‘Sorry,’ she says, establishing eye contact, ‘you were here first.’

  ‘Whatever,’ he says brusquely, ‘go ahead.’

  He doesn’t recognize me. He hasn’t a clue who I am.

  Pip can’t order and pay quickly enough and she weaves and shimmies her way back to Cat who is chatting amiably to Fen and Matt. A side of her wants to go, wants to avoid confrontation, doesn’t want Zac to suddenly recognize her, to approach, let alone converse. A side of her, however, newly unleashed thanks in no small part to Caleb, wants to play, wants to rile Zac and surprise him. A side to her is amused that he doesn’t recognize her and a side to her is slightly irked. So she stays, with half an eye on Fen, half an ear for Cat who is now drunkenly verbose, and half a mind to search Zac out and perform a magic trick on him.

  Luck puts Zac directly in her path a short while later when she returns to the bar for yet more champagne for Cat. This time Pip smiles directly at him and he smiles back. That pretty girl who audaciously pushed in at the bar, he observes. The one who looks vaguely familiar.

  At the heaving bar Pip waits an indecently short while to be served.

  I haven’t a clue how I can feel insulted by him in Holloway, offended by him at the hospital, disconcerted by him on Hampstead Heath – and yet now rather taken with him in Soho.

  Especially as you have Caleb keen and he comes with no added complications of children and stalking tendencies.

  ‘Champagne, please.’

  Ask yourself which bloke your sisters would deem the more suitable.

  ‘Two glasses, thanks.’

  I’m not telling Cat and Fen a thing – much less asking them anything of the sort.

  When Pip turns from the bar, drinks in hand, she tries to catch Zac’s eye but he appears to look straight through her. She feels oddly rejected. Rejecting her feelings, however, she returns to the other side of the club where Cat is actually allowing herself to be chatted up by one of Matt’s mates and barely senses her sister’s return. Fen, meanwhile, has her lips a centimetre from Matt’s and she plants the first of many birthday kisses. Pip averts her gaze and busies herself tracing the rim of the wineglass. It feels as though her work is done. She feels like a spare part. She feels she is no longer needed. She wonders if she could just slip away.

  ‘Look, I know this sounds corny – and I swear it really isn’t my style – but maybe I could buy you a drink?’

  Stalker Bloke!

  She hadn’t seen him approach. She hadn’t expected him to. She’s unprepared. It’s not a state she is familiar with or one that she likes.

  Shit.

  For God’s sake, why not just say ‘yes’, Pip, with a ‘plea
se’. Flicker your eyelashes and have a flirt. He’s only offering to buy you a drink and you don’t currently have one, Cat having just swiped it. Nor do you have anyone to talk to. This might pass the time. This might be amusing.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Pip all but cautions, ‘I’m here with my sisters.’

  ‘Well, I’ll get them drinks, too, if they’d like?’ he suggests. ‘Or is it more that you need their seal of approval?’ He’s ingenuous but momentarily, Pip wonders whether he’s mocking. Then, however, she observes that his face is open and his eyes are soft and he’s tilting his head in an acquiescent way. He shrugs: ‘I don’t have sisters,’ he explains, ‘I wouldn’t know.’ He redeems himself with that.

  He still doesn’t recognize me. I don’t know whether to be offended or entertained.

  He’s tired, Pip. A little pissed, too. And the bar is atmospherically lit or downright dim. And you look pretty different out of slap and motley.

  ‘Look,’ says Zac, ‘can I buy you a drink, or shall I just dig a hole right here and dive headfirst into it?’ He’s never before resorted to chatting women up in bars but he’s elicited a laugh from the girl and he rather feels he’s done quite well. Friendly without being smarmy, witty not corny, self-deprecating not self-satisfied.

  ‘Sure,’ says Pip, ‘why not.’ Her sisters are occupied. Their glasses are full. They won’t need her for the time being.

  ‘What’ll you have?’

  Pip licks her lips and appears to think about it, her index finger raised for emphasis. ‘May I have,’ she ponders and pauses and then regards him with direct eye contact and a lascivious twitch of her mouth, ‘may I have orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash?’ Zac stares at her because, what with the pervasive chatter, the ambient music playing a little too loudly and the good few beers in his system already, combined with the trippy dingle-dangle lighting, he thinks Pip has asked for a cocktail he hasn’t heard of but that he probably should know. ‘Orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash.’ she repeats.