The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  Ruth felt that the timing promised to be very good. All would be cooked to perfection. And, just then, the timing in the O2 centre was pretty spot on, too.

  ‘Here she is,’ whispered June excitedly, able now to scrunch up the leaflet she’d picked up in the O2 centre a couple of days ago and had kept in her bag ever since.

  ‘Indeed she is,’ said Ruth.

  Right on cue, Merry Martha came clumping into view, holding a bunch of helium-filled balloons emblazoned with advertising from a local company – not that the children would mind, or even take note. Free balloons? Fantastic! Writing on them? So what! Almost instantly, the clown was mobbed by children. She began to sing in a ghastly falsetto, falling silent every now and then to bestow a maniacal grin on her young audience or to pepper pregnant pauses with burps and squeaks and honks and farts.

  Ruth and June regarded each other, eyes asparkle. They appeared to have all the raw ingredients at their fingertips. They just needed to start cooking up something spectacular. No time like the present.

  So what if their boys would have supper late? Ruth and June felt that quality time with their sons’ favourite clown would beat any sticky, over-sweetened synthetic pudding they could rustle up, anyway, surpass even the treat of an extra half hour’s television. The clown was finishing her slot by dispersing all the balloons and dispensing raucous fart noises as well. Still the children swarmed around her. Not for freebies, but simply for attention. Play a joke on me! Cover my hair with the paper bits from a hole-punch! Make my hand squeak when you shake it! Squirt me with water! Say something silly about my name! Suddenly, all that could be seen of the clown was a pair of stripy legs and clodhopping orange shoes swaying over a sea of children’s awestruck faces. And that’s how Merry Martha took her leave of her audience – by walking away on her hands singing a dodgy version of Diana Ross’s ‘Upside Down’.

  June picked her moment and then approached. Merry Martha had upended herself, slightly breathless and probably quite flushed under all the pan stick.

  ‘Hullo,’ June greeted, ‘remember me? June – Price? You gave Tom the party of his life.’

  ‘Hullo,’ said the clown, suddenly being poked, then hugged, by Tom and just poked by Billy. It was difficult for June to gauge her reaction because of the painted smile and ready-delineated eyes. But the clown was staying put and that was good. ‘Fancy a cuppa?’ June offered.

  ‘Thanks – but I really ought to make tracks.’

  Cue Tom and Billy. ‘Please!’ implored the one. ‘Beg you!’ pleaded the other. They tugged at her starched skirt and reached up, hoping to pull her pigtails, too.

  ‘I really ought to go,’ the clown apologized. June panicked to herself. But the boys came to the rescue again. Though they physically twisted her arms, it was ultimately their crestfallen expressions which worked wonders. ‘Well,’ the clown faltered, ‘maybe just a very very quick one.’

  ‘You can swig an espresso if you haven’t got time to sip a cappuccino,’ June suggested. The clown laughed and said that in fact she could murder a cup of Earl Grey.

  Pip was led off by Tom and Billy who held tight on to her hands and brandished smiles of triumph and ownership at all the children they passed. The ex-partner of the man she was in love with but was trying to forget, walked a few steps ahead. Pip felt simultaneously terribly uncomfortable and yet also strangely privileged. A direct link to Zac. Contact, however indirect. Perhaps there’d be news of him. Even a mention would do. Maybe news would get back to him. Even a mention would do. Suddenly, Pip’s walk slowed to a shuffle – the boys presumed this was purposeful and thought it hilarious. It now struck Pip that she was steps away from coffee with Zac’s ex and kid and what the fuck was the point of that? Nothing but an acetic reminder of what had been, what went wrong and what would never ensue. And anyway, how on earth was she going to feel when she returned home alone later on? Tom and Billy dragged her along.

  The sister-in-law was also there.

  ‘Do we Martha you or are you Pip?’ Ruth asked reverentially, whilst shaking her hand and smiling warmly. Little did Ruth know how she’d just delivered magic words.

  This Ruth woman understands that clowns are people, too.

  Very well then, Pip would stay for Earl Grey – the last half-hour had been thirsty work, after all. Adult company would be quite nice, too.

  ‘Pip’ll do,’ Pip said.

  June returned with tea and a slice of ginger cake. Gratefully, Pip partook of both.

  They were thoroughly interested in her. Pip was flattered. They asked all about her training, about the highs and lows of such a unique career, what skin-care regime she used to combat all that slap, what fitness programme to maintain such impressive acrobatics. They marvelled at her answers and proclaimed themselves dowdy, unimaginative and unfit by comparison. They asked where she was from. How old was she? How long had she lived in London? And where did she live, did she own or rent? Alone? Pip found herself answering them in full, and soon enough slipping in details that hadn’t been required but were lapped up, anyway. The boys were bored and wandered off to stare at the tropical fish and the shooting water sculpture flanking the escalators.

  ‘Your sisters,’ June asked, ‘what do they do?’

  ‘Cat – she’s the youngest – she’s a sports journalist,’ said Pip. ‘Fen, the middle one, she’s an art historian.’

  ‘Are you close?’ June probed, while realizing how easily they were chatting – so easily that she had completely overlooked the fact that she was sitting with a grown woman dressed as a clown. Who’d slept with her ex. Fleetingly, she wondered whether Pip had been in costume. She couldn’t remember Zac having any kinks or quirks about dressing-up outfits.

  ‘We are very close,’ Pip said, with a smile that broadened the painstakingly painted one, ‘because –’ She paused. Was this a good idea? What was the point not telling the truth now? ‘We’re very close because there’s only us and our uncle.’

  ‘Django – in Derbyshire?’ Ruth recalled from five minutes earlier.

  ‘Yes,’ said Pip.

  ‘He sounds fabulous,’ said Ruth, while quite admiring the design of Pip’s clown face. Not garish. A white base. Rosy cheeks. Eyes delineated in black and embellished with a diamond shape here, a heart shape there. Nose tip neatly painted red. Ears, too. Pigtails meticulously zany. Clothing bright and bizarre but fitting and flattering.

  ‘No child – of whatever age – could wish for a better mother-father-friend,’ Pip proclaimed, missing Django and Derbyshire enormously and deciding right then to visit him that coming weekend.

  ‘Your father?’ Ruth asked.

  ‘He died when I was small,’ Pip revealed softly.

  ‘Your mum?’ June asked quietly.

  Pip paused. Sipped her tea. Dabbed a crumb of cake and licked her finger thoughtfully. June and Ruth were lovely. Why shouldn’t she tell them? All her friends knew. What was so secret? ‘She ran off with a cowboy from Denver when I was even smaller,’ Pip shrugged.

  Ruth and June gasped. The concept of an almost-orphan was so unbelievable it was almost theatrical. The concept of maternal defection was inconceivable. Actually, it was horrific. Criminal. Instinctively, both mothers looked over to their sons. If the boys had been nearer, they’d have hugged them close. But they were larking about, clambering on the fake rocks that really shouldn’t be clambered on. They were happy and safe.

  ‘It’s fine,’ Pip assured them, ‘it’s cool. I suppose we’ve never known any different, you see. I barely remember her. Certainly, I never think about her. Honestly – it’s just a concept to us. It seems it’s more upsetting for others!’ Ruth and June raised their eyebrows, sighed, stared at their laps, lifted their eyes to gaze at Pip benignly.

  ‘Are your sisters married?’ June pressed on, having glanced at her watch, dismayed by how much she and Ruth had yet to achieve and by how little time there was to do it in.

  ‘Fen is assessing the credentials of two rather different m
en – one town, one country; one rich, one poor; one young, one much older.’ June and Ruth looked most impressed. ‘And Cat has finally fallen in love with the right man, having been disastrously involved with the wrong one.’

  June and Ruth nodded and hummed and stirred at the vestiges of froth clinging to the sides of their empty mugs. It’s coming, it’s coming.

  ‘And you?’ Ruth asked casually.

  ‘Me what?’ Pip replied ingenuously.

  ‘You married? Divorced? Living in sin? Just plain sinning? Celibate?’

  Pip stared at the specks of Earl Grey clinging to the base of her cup like dirt. How should she answer them?

  I’m in love with your brother-in-law. Your ex. The father of your child. Of your nephew. I behaved badly and I’m paying the price. I really like you both. But you’ll loathe me when you know more.

  ‘Nah,’ Pip said, nonchalant and dismissive, ‘no one in my life at the mo’ – not even on the horizon.’

  June and Ruth tipped their heads this way and that. ‘By choice?’ Ruth pressed. Again Pip glanced away, looked deep into her teacup but way beyond the dregs of tea, finding much interest instead in the speckles of sugar grains left on the table by the previous customer.

  ‘No,’ she said, flicking the sugar with her finger, ‘not by choice, if I’m honest. By my own –’ She stopped.

  Stop it, stop it! Stop it now. Shut up. Go home.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said breezily, standing up, ‘I really have to go home. I completely forgot, I have to –’ She arose from the table without finishing her sentence.

  You have to what, Pip? Run away? Hide? What?

  ‘Must dash,’ she chirped. ‘Thanks so much for the tea! Tara! Say “bye” to the boys! Ta-ta!’ Merry Martha had suddenly taken the place of Pip, who had performed a disappearing act so fast, so seamless, that the Davids Blaine or Copperfield would pay top dollar for her method.

  ‘Shit!’ said Ruth, frowning at Pip’s teacup.

  June raised her eyebrows in agreement. ‘I guess you could say that our sauce has curdled.’

  Ruth thought for a moment and then disagreed. ‘A little more stirring might just rescue it. You pay and retrieve the boys. I’ll meet you at the car.’

  Ruth comes across Pip walking through the car park.

  ‘Pip!’ she calls, because she refuses to let Merry Martha fool her. ‘Hey! Pip?’ Can she hear her? Is she feigning deafness? Ruth doesn’t care. She walks briskly, jogs a couple of steps, marches up behind her. ‘Pip?’

  Pip turns. Rivulets of grey course down her white face like rain in a London gutter, like the messy smudge on a school book made by a bad eraser. ‘I’ve had a sneezing fit,’ Pip announces defensively. Ruth gives her a tissue and says ‘Bless you’. Pip blows her nose so noisily that momentarily, Ruth wonders if it’s an occupational hazard – that sound effects for bodily functions become unintentionally exaggerated even when the act is off. And then Ruth wonders if the act is off. If it’s all gone off.

  The two women stand in the vast parking lot whilst the ubiquitous jeep-style vehicles of the North London mothers slalom around them.

  ‘That’s better,’ says Pip, dabbing her eyes, then honking her nose again, ‘ta. Must be delayed hay fever or something.’

  ‘Of course,’ says Ruth.

  ‘Better go,’ says Pip and she grins fleetingly before walking off.

  ‘Phone Zac,’ Ruth blurts out. Pip is rendered immobile. She can’t even turn to regard Ruth with horror and insult. She’s too gobsmacked to tell this woman to mind her own bloody business. Though, actually, Pip knows it is partly Ruth’s business. Ruth walks up to her and stands at her side, focusing on the same discarded crisp packet as Pip. ‘Just give him a call,’ Ruth suggests in a voice that is at once wise and caring. There’s silence. She wonders why this one manufacturer puts salt-and-vinegar crisps in a green packet, when most use blue. ‘Give him a call,’ she repeats, ‘for me, for June.’ She scans Pip’s face. ‘For Tom.’ It’s impossible to read her reaction, not just because of the make-up. ‘For Zac,’ Ruth shrugs. ‘Whenever. But do it. I mean, we could do it – June or I – but it wouldn’t be the same. He’d rather hear from you. Believe me. Trust us.’

  ‘I really, really have to go,’ Pip says firmly and she walks off. Ruth tells herself that it’s Pip’s cumbersome comedy shoes that make her stomp so.

  After supper, June phones Zac to arrange Tom’s weekend. Courteously, she asks after Juliana, assuring her sceptical ex that no, she’s not taking the piss.

  ‘Of course I’m not being facetious,’ she remonstrates. ‘I’m being nice, you sod! She seems very, um, alluring. And she’s an absolute stunner, too! You must be the envy of your male friends.’

  Zac doesn’t know how to respond. Weird that Ruth said pretty much the same earlier. He’d presumed that she and June had disliked Juliana for the very reasons he liked her – her beauty and her aloofness. For Zac, just now, surface details suffice. Burrowing beneath takes too much effort for too little reward. Like crème brûlée – crack through the glossy caramelized crown and it can be disappointingly bland underneath.

  ‘We saw your clown today,’ June says conversationally, anticipating the ensuing silence. ‘Zac?’ she chirps. ‘You there?’

  ‘What?’ Zac pretends he hasn’t heard. ‘My mobile phone is ringing,’ he fibs. Says he must go. Says ‘See you on Sunday’. June knows he’s been taken off his guard. Why wouldn’t she know? She’s his ex-partner. She knows what makes him tick. And what doesn’t. And if he was over the clown, he’d’ve just said ‘Oh, really?’ and if the clown had never meant much anyway, he’d’ve just said ‘Oh, really?’ He wouldn’t have been struck silent. He wouldn’t have lied about his mobile phone. June feels encouraged and of course she phones Ruth directly.

  The next morning, Zac wakes to a slumber-hazy image of Pip lying next to him. Pigtails jutting this way and that. A little residue of face paint here and there. A glimpse of rosy nipple. Silken shoulder. The sound of her breathing softly. The sensation of the warmth from her body; the scent of it. He indulges himself and lets the apparition linger awhile. Then Juliana sighs from the other side of his bed and a sharp toenail catches his ankle. He’s wide awake now and Pip is banished. Or did she vanish? Hard to tell. But she’s certainly gone.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Django knew it was important to feign delighted surprise at Pip’s announcement of her impromptu visit. However, pre-emptive calls from both Cat and Fen had, of course, furnished him with the bare bones of his eldest niece’s situation almost as soon as they were known. He was rather stunned to hear that she who had so famously denounced love, sex and all the incumbent panoply, was now licking her wounds, racking her conscience and nursing her heart, having apparently fumbled with a few too many men in too few months. Django was pleased that Pip wanted to come home and rest up. Though he was confident that her sisters would offer limitless emotional comfort, he knew he could provide help of a practical nature that they could not. Django had always championed the necessity of distance from London, the merits of Derbyshire air, the importance of three large home-cooked meals a day, the refuge in the solid walls of one’s childhood home. Contemplation and game plans might well be achievable in the wine bars of London surrounded by one’s contemporaries, but true healing and intrinsic belief in the right way forward, were best done at home. And home, for the McCabe girls, would only ever be Derbyshire.

  Down in London, so he’d heard, most young people would lunch on the go on prepacked sandwiches and grab a supper from a conveyor belt of uncooked fish and cold rice squashed into strange shapes. The thought made Django shudder. Meals should be three courses long (if the lemon soufflé was ready first, then have it first – the McCabes often did) and be eaten in a leisurely way at the table. Think of the indigestion otherwise! He’d be the first to concede that his recipes were unconventional, but they were undeniably wholesome. Just look at the health and vitality of his nieces; he could count on one hand the numb
er of school days they had missed – the three of them combined – due to illness. And Django credits their closeness as a family in part to his rigorously adhered-to institution of eating together at the table. That’s why the girls have such becoming table manners. The McCabe household in Farleymoor, Derbyshire, has never done supper on laps with fork-loads shovelled absent-mindedly into mouths whilst the focus is on watching television. Instead, they’ve always sat at the kitchen table, chatted and argued, conversed and jested long after the meal is over. Even now, on their visits home, Django will unearth the old Top of the Form general knowledge quiz books at the girls’ request, grilling them on the capital city of such-and-such a country while they wait for the soup to heat up, or the casserole to cool down, or the ice-cream to melt a little so that it can be spooned out.

  Django went to the vast chest freezer in the only outhouse with a weatherproof roof and rummaged around for the racks of lamb that the Merifields had given him. He’d been saving them for a Special Supper, wondering when that would be and now knowing without hesitation that it was tonight. He smacked his lips at the thought of gravy, his secret recipe which called for eye-watering quantities of Tabasco and a good dollop of Bovril. He’d have liked to do his celery and stilton soup for starters. But he’d forgotten the celery. And the stilton. So he was going to experiment with apple and cheddar instead. If ingredients went well together in the raw, he was confident that they’d cook up a treat when together in the pot. And anyway, it wasn’t as if a good slosh of Worcestershire Sauce couldn’t help where necessary. Maybe a dribble of sherry if he hadn’t drunk it all. He couldn’t remember. He had a feeling that he’d finished the Scotch but that the sherry was still half full. He could be mistaken, though. If that was the case, he knew there was an unopened bottle of Madeira wine that would do very nicely instead.