The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  ‘Is everything OK for Sunday?’ Pip asked, neatening up her little toenail by removing a tiny fleck of stray nail polish with her thumbnail. ‘I’ve bought new batteries for my light-up nose!’

  ‘Wonderful!’ Mrs Price laughed. ‘My son – Tom, the birthday boy, of course – wanted me to ask you if you’d be doing balloons.’

  ‘Of course! No birthday is complete without balloons.’

  Mrs Price sighed with relief. ‘He always keeps them – even when they’re flat and squidgy. Your parrot is his favourite. He’s had a couple of them.’

  ‘Oh?’ Pip said. ‘Has he seen me before, then?’

  ‘Gosh, yes!’ Mrs Price enthused. ‘You’re his best birthday wish come true!’

  ‘How lovely,’ Pip smiled, three toes done, seven to go. Maybe she’d do her fingernails, too. ‘I’ll make sure it’s a party to remember.’

  ‘On a personal level,’ Mrs Price confided, ‘I’m so looking forward to him having a clown at home rather than hospital.’

  Pip paused, varnish brush loaded, hovering. ‘Hospital?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Mrs Price, ‘Tom knows you foremost as Dr Pippity.’

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘I mean, I doubt whether you’d know him – you must see so many kids,’ Mrs Price continued almost apologetically. ‘My son Tom has treatment at St Bea’s,’ she explained, ‘for eczema.’

  A glob of nail polish fell in slow motion from the brush. It hit the sofa. It was followed by another drip. Which fell on the carpet. Two drops. Darker and thicker than blood. As a stain, even more difficult to remove.

  ‘Tom,’ Pip repeated, unable to make sense of the spilt polish, or the identity of the child; the word ‘eczema’ echoing cacophonously around her head.

  ‘As I said,’ Mrs Price repeated warmly, ‘you must see so many children, I doubt whether you’d remember him. Though you might when you see him. He’s so gorgeous, even if I do say so myself. Proud mum and all that!’

  ‘Actually, I do know Tom,’ Pip said distractedly, absent-mindedly coating an expanse of toe, almost down to the joint, with nail varnish. ‘Hermione from Harry Potter. He like Hermione.’

  ‘Yes!’ Mrs Price exclaimed, exuding gratitude. ‘Hermione! That’ll be Tom. He’s so excited about his party – I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll see him on his birthday,’ Pip said in a monotone voice she couldn’t help. ‘Tell Tom I’m looking forward to it, too.’

  No, she wasn’t. Pip wasn’t looking forward to the party at all. If there was any way she could get out of it, she would. She regarded her six painted toes, three of which were horrendously smudged and messy. She stared at the spilt polish. She didn’t have the energy or inclination to finish her pedicure or set to work on the stains on her sofa and carpet. She sat there, the brush out of the bottle, drying out, wondering if there was any way she could cancel her Sunday booking. In fact, there were plenty of ways – she simply had to choose one, and quickly. She could phone in with fictitious flu or a made-up migraine or an imaginary sprained ankle. She could call Fizzie Lizzie and ask her if she’d like the job instead. And if Fizzie Lizzie, ever busy and popular, couldn’t help, Pip could try Bo Jingles – she was local. As was Betty Brown Clumsy Clown. She was great with balloons. There were many possibilities. But Pip knew that none would do. If she hadn’t heard firsthand that Tom himself was so excited, if she hadn’t been asked on Tom’s behalf about the sodding balloons, cancelling would have been no problem. But the boy was looking forward to Merry Martha making his day. So how on earth could Pip McCabe refuse?

  Pip observed the entry for Sunday in her diary: ‘Price Party, 3.30 p.m. Swiss Cott. (Tom / 6 yrs).’

  Was there any way she really could have put two and two together? No. No clues at all. The surname Holmes hadn’t been mentioned; the location was Swiss Cottage, not Hampstead. It was Tom’s mother who was organizing it. Mrs Price had mentioned her husband; however, the father of her child had not come up in conversation by name or status. There had been no opportunity for Pip to have even an inkling of anything untoward or unconventional. Let alone that this woman had borne the child of the man Pip herself had bedded.

  Momentarily, Pip harboured a faint hope that maybe Tom’s broken home was just that – dysfunctional parents divvying up alternate birthdays, alternate Christmases, weekends, bank holidays, whatevers. That this year it was the mother’s turn. Hopefully, Zac was persona non grata and had no invitation, let alone access, to his son’s sixth birthday party. But Pip swiftly cursed herself. That wasn’t wishful thinking, it was utterly unpleasant and cruel. She was ashamed. Even if they weren’t together, Tom’s parents provided him with a stable and loving childhood, surely.

  Pip thought back to that time in the hospital – the first time when Zac had asked her out, having stalked her through Out-patients and up to the renal ward. Asked her out for a drink. Orangey-lemony-blackcurranty squash. Hadn’t both parents been with Tom then? She’d had no idea they were anything other than a conventional happy family. Which was precisely why Zac’s approach and overture back then had appeared so unsavoury to Pip. Pip let her gaze fall on the sorry state of her half-varnished toes. What a bloody mess. The simplest fact was the most logical – June Price, with whom the child lived, had organized his sixth birthday party at home. You wouldn’t fit fifteen children in Zac’s sitting-room, after all. The Eames lounger wouldn’t cope. It wouldn’t be fair on the banana chair. Parking was a nightmare. There was only the one bay and that was for his Audi.

  Pip replaced the brush in the bottle of nail polish. She placed it in the waste-paper basket. Again, she scrutinized the booking as it was written in her appointments diary. It was glaringly obvious from the phone calls that Tom’s mother had no idea that the clown she’d hired for her son’s sixth birthday, the very clown who had brought him so much pleasure and comfort, had in fact had sex with her ex-partner, Tom’s father. Twice. Pip realized that June Price, therefore, wouldn’t have a clue that now the clown and the ex-partner were both harbouring a strong desire never to see each other again. Mrs Price would never have given Merry Martha the gig, had she known.

  And, had she known, she certainly wouldn’t have told Zac to bring his South African ‘friend’ along with him.

  Fuck fuck fuck. I can’t cancel now. Bugger bollocks. Of course Zac will be there. Shit shit shit. There’s nail varnish everywhere.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  And what does Zac know of the birthday festivities for his son? Nothing at all. Just that June has devoted her life, or the past month at the very least, to organizing everything. What luxury to leave it all in his ex-partner’s capable hands. Trips to Waitrose, Tesco, Asda, M&S and Sainsbury’s. Cake ordering. Entertainment organizing. Goody-bag stuffing. Invites and chase-ups. Bulk purchasing of wet wipes. Not to mention the post-party-fallout clean-up operation. June has seen to it all, and done so with aplomb, good grace, boundless energy and great results.

  ‘Just turn up, Zac,’ she’s told him, ‘and bring that new one – Julietta-ana – by all means.’

  Juliana is happy to attend the party – she had nothing else planned and, with London in August being so dead, it seemed unlikely that any viable alternatives would materialize. Anyway, she could check out Zac’s ex-partner and wish his son a happy birthday in one fell swoop. However, she had no desire to traipse around Toys “R” Us. That was well beyond the call of duty. She’ll meet Zac later on. She’ll go and have a massage first. La Stone therapy.

  Zac is spending his Sunday morning alone in the toy superstore wondering how many automated model dumper trucks a six-year-old can have. Wouldn’t he like Lego? A jigsaw? No, Tom wants dumper trucks. He already has a veritable fleet.

  ‘Maybe he’s going into business,’ Zac laughs out loud. ‘My son Tom, the Eddie Stobart of model trucks and tractors!’

  Actually, Zac is standing in the middle of the dolls aisle, staring absent-mindedly at a doll that the packaging proclaims ‘Makes pee pee. Cries. S
ays Mamma. Realistically. Requires 2 AA batteries’. The doll isn’t remotely realistic. It’s quite frightening, really, with a pug-ugly face, staring eyes and a granny’s hairdo. But Zac is preoccupied with the image of Tom as a truckie and he’s enjoying another hearty chuckle. A mother standing nearby fixes him with a look of mistrust and ushers her young daughter away. Zac doesn’t notice. He heads for the model cars and finds a smorgasbord crammed with them. After great deliberation, he chooses a green machine. He’s fairly sure there’s not one similar – in hue, form or multifunctions – in his son’s collection. It requires four AA batteries, which can only be a good thing. Zac feels he’s found the ultimate present and he’s proud. He heads for Hampstead, spending ages in a variety of shops en route in pursuit of the perfect birthday card. It’s almost lunch-time. He told June he’d arrive just after lunch. So he could have some quality one-to-one time with his son, the brand new six-year-old, before the party begins.

  June Price’s front doorbell goes.

  ‘Can someone get that?’ she shouts through from her kitchen. ‘I’m having an icing crisis!’

  ‘I’ll go,’ Zac offers, leaving Tom enthralled with his shiny green dumper truck while his stepfather Rob-Dad is engrossed in constructing impressive garaging from empty present boxes. Zac goes to the front door.

  There stands Juliana.

  There stands Pip.

  Pip and Juliana are stood on the doorstep.

  Pip and Juliana are standing there, side by side, right in front of Zac. Though he blinks hard, it doesn’t make a blind bit of sense.

  Where are you going to look, Zac? What are you going to say?

  Fuck me.

  Luckily, he says that to himself.

  Pip and Juliana. Juliana and Pip. Pip in jeans and a T-shirt. Juliana in Joseph.

  ‘Hi,’ he says, not looking at either woman, staring over both their heads instead, ‘come on in.’

  The three of them hovered in the hallway until June came through from the kitchen. For a woman emerging from the midst of intricate icing issues, she looked remarkably composed – and clean. Mahogany hair swishing around her face in a meticulous bob, radiant skin, eyes sparkling behind fashionably frameless spectacles, a genuine smile subtly enhanced by just a lick of lipstick.

  ‘Hullo,’ June greeted them cordially, ‘hullo.’ She shook Juliana’s hand first, then Pip’s. ‘Nice to meet you,’ she told the former, ‘fantastic to see you,’ she told the latter. ‘Zac, you settle Juliana – I’ll take Martha up to change.’

  ‘Pip,’ Zac said. June didn’t say ‘pardon’ because she was used to Zac’s quirky expressions and presumed that to be one.

  ‘My name is Pip when I’m like this,’ said Pip, patting her T-shirt. Zac stared at her, June regarded her thoughtfully, Juliana wasn’t remotely interested. ‘Merry Martha, like Dr Pippity, is my clown,’ Pip explained, holding up her bag, brimming with props and costume, for emphasis.

  June nodded. ‘What’s your real name, then?’ she asked, because she didn’t think that ‘Pip’ could be a real name. Actually, she’s right, in a way.

  ‘Philippa,’ Pip said with a weary sigh. She suddenly felt too fuddled to explain or justify. She was acutely aware of Zac’s proximity. How deluded must she have been, she wondered, to presume that she’d never have to see him again? She might well be allowed to disappear and change and reappear in her wacky alter ego, but she’d still have to share the same orbit for the rest of the afternoon. She felt as tired as if she’d just performed and done an encore for forty children. ‘Philippa McCabe,’ she said to June, hoping that would be enough.

  It satisfied June. ‘Come on, Ms McCabe, let’s get you settled.’

  As Zac led Juliana through to the sitting-room, he thought how he had never heard Pip refer to herself by her full name. It sounded odd. Too many syllables or something. Too mature or sophisticated, somehow. Out of sorts with the girl he knew. Philippa. It sounded so rounded, feminine. But Pip suited her better. It was punchy and bright and complemented her personality, rhyming with ‘zip’ and ‘flip’ and ‘hip’ – all of which defined her. As well as ‘blip’, which Zac tells himself sternly is all she’d been.

  Now, take Juliana – there, even more syllables. And undeniably more mature, indisputably more sophisticated, ultimately less complex. Who cared that nothing seemed to rhyme with her name – neither she nor he had any delusions of poetry between them. Zac took Juliana through to see the birthday boy, whom she greeted in the same demure manner she’d employ to greet a forty-year-old. Friend, colleague, stranger, lover, child – she gave each her beautifully manicured hand to hold. Zac was slightly disappointed that she chose to sit by the window and flip through one of June’s glossy magazines. She expressed no interest in the truck, the day, the garaging. Rob-Dad seemed to catch her eye temporarily, though he remained far more engrossed in his cardboard architecture. Tom, however, didn’t seem to notice, let alone care – and that, thought Zac, was the main thing, surely.

  June was so open and friendly towards Pip, taking her to the kitchen for a cup of coffee, nattering away as she led her up to the spare room, that Pip felt almost obliged to inform her of the history with Zac to save any future embarrassment. Of course, she did no such thing. But she immediately warmed to June and half wondered why Zac and she were not together. To Pip, they seemed to have all the attributes of a very good couple.

  It’s a bit sad, isn’t it – but something of a phenomenon, too, I think – that you often see a couple who seem so well suited but who just can’t keep it together.

  Yes, Pip, or even get it together in the first place.

  ‘This is the spare room,’ June announced, ‘though it’s hardly spare – it is an essential rather than surplus space where we unceremoniously dump all our stuff.’ She took Pip into the room almost proudly. ‘Actually, it’s one of my favourite places in the house. It’s the contents that make it so. I spend hours in here, mooching and reminiscing. I can’t work out whether it’s cathartic or a bit pathetic.’ She gestured to a wall stacked to the ceiling with boxes. ‘Books, photo albums, baby clothes, all my university English files and essays, Rob’s collection of model cars, mine of wooden ducks.’ June rubbed her brow. ‘My grandmother’s wedding dress is in that trunk. Moiré taffeta and stunning. I suppose I should be ruthless and unsentimental and chuck the lot. But would you?’

  Pip shook her head vehemently. ‘Luckily, I have my childhood home in Derbyshire to amass all the stuff I wouldn’t dream of chucking out – which is basically everything I’ve ever owned.’

  June laughed. ‘I mean, I’ll put money on my husband never using that sodding windsurf board again – he has no sense of balance, let alone sea legs, or much affinity with the water at all!’ Pip leant her back against something – a cot. ‘I guarantee you, that will never be used again!’ June proclaimed. Pip looked a little startled until June made a scissors-snipping gesture with her fingers and winked at her. ‘Do you have children?’ she asked Pip.

  ‘No,’ Pip confirmed, a pregnant pause causing her to wonder whether she ought to justify or explain.

  ‘I just have the one,’ June said, ‘but not with my husband – with the bloke who let you in. My ex.’

  Pip nodded as if she was only vaguely interested and far more concerned with slurping her tea. Suddenly, though, she wondered how June and Zac’s relationship did work; logistically, emotionally. Also, why it hadn’t worked. And the fact that they weren’t together – but obviously remained fond of each other and in constant contact – how on earth did that work? How was so little visible damage possible? Pip knew this was probably a perfect time to probe – before any details were revealed about herself and Zac. Yet there seemed little point. There was nothing between them. And that, she had to concede, was the point. Just a coincidence that she was there today. That Zac was the father of the kid. Yet still Pip felt awkward.

  ‘It’s cool,’ shrugged June, who had warmed immediately to Philippa far more than she had to th
e willowy South African. ‘Zac – Tom’s dad – and my husband get along fine and always have. I think I’m lucky that the only two men I’ve ever been serious about are so well-balanced and sorted within themselves. Plus that my son has two fantastic fathers – the lucky little bugger!’

  Please don’t ask me if I’m involved with anyone.

  Pip desperately searched the room in a glance for some interesting possession or other that would serve to change the topic of conversation. And distract her from considering the words ‘well-balanced’ and ‘sorted’ being used in conjunction with Zac.

  ‘Are you involved with anyone?’ June asked.

  ‘No, no,’ Pip said breezily, physically brushing the question away with a swipe of her hand, ‘haven’t really had the time or the inclination recently.’

  ‘Mind you,’ June said, wistful, even gently jealous, ‘I half envy you all that peace and quiet. The fact that you need answer to no one but yourself – you need think of no one but yourself. Just the thought of luxuriating in a bath every single bloody day! It’s an in-and-out job for me,’ she bemoaned. ‘Rather like sex once you’re married,’ she continued, with good comic timing and a facial expression to match. ‘I ought to let you transform yourself into Merry Martha,’ June apologized. ‘The bathroom’s next door along. Are you sure you have everything? There’s loads of cotton wool and all manner of potions and lotions – just help yourself.’

  Pip assured her she was well stocked. She liked June instantly; she could well imagine her easily fitting into girls’ nights with her sisters and pals. Pip swiftly decided to blame Zac for spoiling this potential.

  ‘Thanks,’ Pip said, ‘thanks for the coffee. And the chat. Sometimes, I’m ignored – shoved into a broom cupboard and just as soon shoved out the front door.’

  ‘Nightmare,’ June murmured with genuine concern. ‘You can stay for tea, if you like. Now I’m going down to scrutinize Juliana – that woman you came in with? She’s my ex – Zac’s – new squeeze and I’m intrigued. Gorgeous shoes and amazing legs – the cow. But that’s all I’ve clocked so far. I’m hoping she has unfortunate teeth. Or no personality.’ With that, she grinned at Pip and turned for the door. ‘It’s odd, isn’t it – I mean, I have no desires, latent or otherwise, for Zac. No way! Not in the slightest. In fact, I’d love to see him happily settled.’ June was then momentarily distracted by some forgotten possession or other peeking out of a storage box. She shook her head to restore her to the present. Pip would have shaken her otherwise for the same effect – she was hanging on her every word. ‘Yes, I’d love Zac to find – or at least embrace – the kind of stability and life I’ve found,’ June theorized, ‘and yet there will always be something just a little galling about him having glamorous girlfriends.’ She bit her lip as if she’d revealed some deplorable side of her personality. ‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘it probably comes down to me being a bitch. I’m sure Aesop has a suitable fable! Dog in a manger? I don’t know – more like, I’m happy for him to feast all he likes, as long as it’s bland!’