by Freya North
Zac’s phone beeped on Saturday morning, just as he was hovering in June’s hallway waiting for Tom to amass the troops and the trucks that he simply couldn’t live without for the next twenty-four hours. With Tom’s rucksack in one hand and Tracy Island in the other, plus Woody from Toy Story slung over his arm, Zac thought the phone could wait until later. And then he thought that perhaps he might just retrieve it now. He dumped Woody and the rucksack and gave June the task of deputizing over Tracy Island. He found his phone. He read the message. He scrolled through though he had no need to. He was an accountant. He liked figures. He knew certain numbers off by heart. He read the message again. He laughed. The phone gave him the option ‘Erase?’ Certainly not! He passed it to June to read.
cabbage & cupcake??? sounds like a mad combo…
‘Reply! Reply!’ June urged excitedly.
‘Yes, yes,’ Zac said with great nonchalance. ‘Later.’ And he left June all flustered and none the wiser as to his course of action while he led Tom out towards his car. She stood by the front door blowing kisses to Tom and making a telephone gesture with her thumb and little finger to Zac.
Zac appalled himself by texting whilst he drove. He’d never done so before – he’d never even spoken on his mobile in the car unless his hands-free kit was plugged in. Yet here he was, driving one-handed, texting a message, glancing in the rear-view mirror irregularly, watching the road infrequently, trying to keep up a conversation with Tom at the same time.
acquired taste – suck it and see …
Did he dare send that?
Go on!
jamie o? gordon r? cordon b? can’t find recipe …
Pip had laughed so long and hard that by the time she sent this reply, Zac was safely parked. He set up Tom with the toys and a glass of juice and went to his bedroom window-sill to compose his response.
come 4 t? 2day? u can use loo …
Pip didn’t keep him waiting for long for her answer.
it’s a d8 …
Zac smiled.
‘Tom, guess who’s coming to see us later?’
‘Um, I dunno. Buzz Lightyear? Lady Penelope?’
‘Almost,’ said Zac. ‘Actually, your clown is.’
‘Oh. Brill. Can you do that special noise for Thunderbird 1 now, please? But I mustn’t see you. Go behind there and do the noise. Put your phone down, Daddy. Let’s play.’
Pip tried in vain to speak to Fen, Cat, Megan and Django. No one was at home and the girls weren’t answering their mobiles. She wanted to tell them the developments, she wanted to work through what she should wear, how she should act, should she bake cupcakes? Take with her a caddy of Earl Grey? Buy a small cabbage en route? How could she face such weighty decisions alone? Ultimately, she decided to read great significance into the fact that she could make contact with none of them. She’d just have to trust her instincts and think for herself. She knew they’d all kick themselves when they realized she’d tried to contact them, she knew they’d be desperate for details and would want to send her their vibes and advice and encouragement. She texted the same message to her sisters and best friend.
t at z’s – wish me luck!!!
After three entire costume changes, she settled for a chocolate brown needlecord skirt, black polo neck and tight black boots with a low heel but dainty nonetheless. She buffed her skin the Clarins way, spritzed a little perfume in strategic places, slicked on some lip balm and waved the mascara wand over the tips of her eyelashes. The ensemble was subtle, but she felt properly dressed and attractive.
‘Nicely put together,’ as Django would say. If he could see me now. If only he was at home for me to describe how I look over the phone.
She left her flat without noticing which lights she’d left on or that she had not turned off the radio in the kitchen.
Damn! Is it rude to turn up without a thing? Would it really have been corny to have brought a small cabbage? Wouldn’t such a gesture be the deal-clincher? Shall I turn back and find something to buy?
She had arrived at Zac’s empty-handed but with a stomach now so full of butterflies that, as she hovered her finger over the doorbell, she wondered how she’d find room for tea.
I suppose, though, that tea just might be a euphemism.
This both excited and appalled her. Though she suddenly felt undeniably horny, if Zac was intending to seduce her, might he not be put off by unshaven legs?
To say nothing of my knickers being the colour of well-chewed gum?
Put on your most beguiling smile, girl, and ring the sodding doorbell!
If anyone was to ask Zac about that fabled, elusive moment when he knew, he just knew, that Pip was the one for him, he’d declare it was hearing her response to Tom greeting her that Saturday afternoon. It didn’t strike him like a bolt from heaven, it didn’t really occur to him at all just then. It was only in retrospect that he credited the impact of her reaction to Tom with consolidating how he felt about her.
‘Oh hullo, Tom, how are you?’
Pip’s tone was steady and casual. She seemed neither surprised, delighted nor disappointed. It was as if she took for granted that ringing Zac’s bell might well see his son opening the door, because she was content that his son should be as much a part of the fabric of his life, the furnishing of his flat, as the Eames lounger.
‘I’m fine, thanks,’ said Tom. ‘Shall I call you Pip today?’
‘Sure.’
‘Brill. Come in and play. My dad’s on the loo just now. He’s been in there for ages.’
Pip and Tom wrinkled their noses in unison and then giggled conspiratorially.
‘Do you know how to play Thunderbirds?’
‘Um, I’m not sure, Tom. Maybe the rules I know are different to yours – let’s play your way.’
‘All right. You have to go somewhere I can’t see you – like behind there – and make a noise like this.’
‘Like this?’
‘No! That’s rubbish. Like this.’
‘How about this?’
‘Yes, that’s OK. You’ll probably get better at it. Now go over there and every time I lift Thunderbird 1, make that noise. OK?’
‘Roger.’
‘Roger? Who’s Roger? There isn’t a Roger.’
‘I mean, righty-ho.’
So Pip was to be heard and not seen when Zac emerged from the bathroom. And her first indication of Zac that afternoon came from Tom.
‘Did you have a runny tummy, Daddy?’
‘No, just a bit of wind, Tom. I should have had chicken nuggets, not the quarter pounder.’
In retrospect, that was probably the moment Pip truly fell for Zac. He liked her enough and felt comfortable enough with himself to make his flatulence public. No act. No baggage. And anyway, she herself had always veered to a lavatorial sense of humour. Plus, she was aware that whether or not Zac had wind made no difference to how she felt.
Tom positioned his father out of sight on the opposite end of the room to Pip and commanded him to make the sound of Thunderbird 2 at the given sign. Zac growled from his side, Pip perfected a vehicular grumble from hers and that’s basically how they conversed for a good ten minutes until Tom remembered something he’d forgotten to tell his father.
‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I forgot! Come and see.’
He led Zac over to where Pip was positioned. They looked down upon her, crouching and preparing to growl. She looked up. She didn’t seem in the slightest bit embarrassed but she did look a little cramped.
‘Hullo,’ said Zac.
‘Hullo,’ she responded.
‘It’s Pip,’ said Tom, just in case his father had been duped into thinking Thunderbird 1 was really full of fuel and raring to go on an International Rescue.
‘Cup of tea?’ Zac offered, offering his hand and hauling her up.
‘That would be nice,’ she accepted, rubbing her back and cricking her knees. ‘Thunderbirds is thirsty work.’
It wasn’t that time flew because they were all having
fun – which they were – but more due to Tom demanding their undivided attention until he decided he was starving hungry and please could he have his supper. After which, the child was so tired and played out that he promised to brush his teeth for twice as long in the morning if he could go straight to sleep right now. His father wouldn’t hear of it. And so, for the first time all afternoon, Pip had five minutes in her own company while her host and his son – or was it her host and his father? – busied themselves elsewhere with bedtime routines. She sat herself down on the Eames footstool and had a good look at the new painting. She did like it. It proved to her that there’s a place for everything. And in Zac’s flat, it had found a sympathetic environment in which to sing. It would dwarf her flat. The colours were too strident – it would be like a blackbird singing before it is light. Lovely in itself, but somehow sadly incongruous and somewhat lost without an audience.
When Zac came through having settled Tom, he found Pip picking at the leftovers on his son’s plate.
‘I can spare you a whole fish finger,’ Zac offered. ‘The freezer is full of them.’
‘Actually,’ Pip replied, ‘I like the crunchy end bits with cold baked beans.’
‘How about the cold peas?’ Zac asked.
Pip wrinkled her nose. ‘No,’ she said, ‘you can have them. I don’t like the way they sort of implode. They look like the footballs you see in skips, or people’s fingertips after a long bath.’
‘So I’m having leftover leftovers,’ Zac mused.
‘Yes,’ said Pip, ‘dig in.’
They don’t really know what to do. They’ve played Thunderbirds, drunk tea, eaten leftovers, broken the ice. They’re housebound on account of Tom and, on account of Tom, playing old records, at the sort of volume old records deserve to be heard at, is out, too. They did their critique of the new painting last weekend. Currently, neither of them needs the loo, or a drink replenishing.
‘Would you like to sit down?’ Zac asks.
‘Thanks very much,’ says Pip. He takes her hand and, awkwardly, they attempt to walk as nonchalantly as they can from the kitchen counter at which they’ve been hovering, through to the sitting-room. Pip’s hands feel clammy to her, but there again, Zac’s feel clammy to him. He sits down on the sofa and momentarily, Pip wonders quite where she should sit. She’s done the Eames – lounger and footstool. How about the banana chair? She’d like to sit right next to Zac but suddenly, she feels she should wait and see.
Zac pats the space next to him and Pip lowers herself down in a most demure way. The two of them then endure an awkward few moments of unnecessary sighs and picking at the labels on the bottled beer and starting sentences simultaneously, then deferring to each other to the extent that nothing is said. Pip contrives a yawn though she’s too excited to be tired. It is only eight o’clock.
‘Um,’ she says.
Zac stretches one leg in front of him, as if suffering from cramp. He fingers the fraying label on his beer. ‘Hmm.’
They smile, shyly and fleetingly, at each other. For two people who were perfecting impressions of the Thunderbird craft that very afternoon – albeit crouching at opposite sides of the room – they are now remarkably formal with each other. Pip finds herself wishing Tom was still up to boss them around and tell them what to do, what to say and when.
Without warning, Zac places his hand on Pip’s knee and gives a little squeeze.
‘I’m sorry about last week,’ she announces, surprising herself at her brevity. It is music to his ears but a tune he wasn’t expecting to hear just then.
‘I’m sorry, too,’ he says.
‘I mean, it was stupid of me not to call,’ she elaborates. ‘I was just trying to – I don’t know – make amends by making contact. But now I feel I’m in some crazy downward spiral, having to make amends for making amends that have gone wrong.’
Zac drinks to that. He’s not quite sure which event Pip is referring to. After all, she turned up unannounced on both occasions.
‘I thought they’d like balloon willies. Stupid it may seem, but I just thought that as a tough day drew to a close, I’d lighten the tone by lowering it. I meant no harm. And I’m mortified.’
Zac considers her apology and regards her pained expression. ‘What’s odd,’ he defines, ‘is that you’re apologizing for something I don’t think needs an apology. I’d much rather say sorry to you for humiliating you – marching you out of the office like a loony or a criminal. Stress got the better of me and skewed my vision.’
Pip reflects on this and looks at Zac. His eyes are burrowing into hers, seeking her response.
‘OK, shall we call it quits for the Office Atrocity?’ she suggests. They chink beer bottles. She takes a contemplative sip. ‘I’m sorry, too, about turning up like that last weekend. When you had company.’
Zac swigs and thinks. ‘I’m not,’ he says, ‘I’m just sorry I had company. But I’m very pleased you came. It, er, made me see right through the company that I was keeping.’ Pip’s gaze flicks around his face. He spells it out. ‘It was casual, anyway,’ he says, ‘so it was simply semantics to end something that was never actually on in the first place.’
‘You mean,’ Pip deduces, ‘you chucked her?’
‘Actually,’ Zac corrects, ‘she suggested we call it quits.’
‘Oh,’ says Pip, trying not to let her inner voice yell ‘Baggage! Baggage! Emasculated! Rebound!’
‘Saved me the job,’ Zac reveals with a very grateful shrug, and Pip’s inner voice breathes a shoulder-dropping sigh of relief. ‘We just formalized not to bother with each other any more.’ Suddenly, they are both aware that Zac still has his hand on Pip’s knee. He attempts to take it away, as if he’s being presumptuous, but she places hers on top of his and there they stay.
Pip decides to take her boots off. She wants to come very close to Zac, she wants to sit herself entirely next to him. But she oughtn’t to have her shoes on the furniture. ‘Pull?’ she asks, holding out her leg. Zac eases off one boot, then the other. She settles herself facing Zac, her legs tucked underneath her. She touches his cheek. ‘Um,’ she says, not knowing what to say but knowing that she has two or three great soliloquies to choose from, if only she could locate them. ‘It’s just.’
Fuck it.
It seems a very good idea to kiss him gently, soon enough deeply, while her brain tries to find where she’s stored all those beautifully phrased declarations. After a good long kiss, she still can’t remember. So she kisses him again. And after that one, Zac looks so dazed and lust-soaked that she half thinks she could say anything and he wouldn’t really hear.
No. This is important. For myself, if not for Zac.
‘Zac, what I’m most sorry for is the dithering,’ she says, pulling away but keeping her eyes focused on his lips.
‘Playing hard to get?’ Zac asks lasciviously, making for another kiss.
‘No,’ Pip says defiantly, placing her fingertip against his lips, ‘listen! I wasn’t playing hard to get. The point is, back then I really didn’t know if I wanted to be got in the first place.’
This makes perfect sense to Zac who feels they both deserve to increase the intensity and geography of the fondling and subsequently takes his hand to her breasts. And soon enough he’s easing her down, prostrate along the settee, and they’re petting and snogging and feeling and grabbing and his feet are on the furniture and his shoes aren’t clean and he’d rather buy a new bloody sofa than spoil the moment.
‘The point is,’ he says, some minutes later and a little breathlessly, ‘none of that matters now, does it? Not how you felt or acted then, nor my Juliana interlude, nor clowning at the office. Because the point is – look at us now. Whatever we didn’t want then, we want now. We’re allowed to change our minds.’
Pip just wants more kissing. To her, just now, physical manifestations of desire, relief, affection, apology are worth more than anything Shakespeare himself could have penned. She pulls Zac down over her again and closes
her eyes, letting his lips touch down on hers, letting her mouth open and allowing their tongues to chatter away in a language of their own.
‘The point is,’ Zac pulls away again, slightly flushed, panting a little, ‘we are currently snogging and humping and making out like a couple of hormone-crazed teenagers. It consigns all the other stuff into the past. It’s all just a part of our history – because I’d like to think that we have a future. From now on.’
As Zac kisses her, Pip realizes she’s just learned a lesson she’ll never forget; that apologies can be accepted without risk of payback, that a shaky start can lead to a sublime journey, that one’s history is made of everything one does and that unsavoury or difficult elements can rest in the past peaceably alongside the happy or easy elements. Fundamentally, that there need be no repercussions for the future.
‘That we can laugh about our rocky start in times to come,’ Pip states, no need for a question mark.
‘Stay,’ Zac whispers. ‘I’m about to explode.’
‘Not tonight,’ Pip says. ‘I don’t want Tom to see me without my make-up in the morning.’
Zac considers this. ‘Tom or you?’
‘Tom,’ Pip says. ‘He’s only little. I’m Thunderbird 1 to him at the moment. And his daddy shouldn’t sleep with his toys without asking.’
‘I’ll have a chat with him,’ Zac informs her, ‘and I know he’ll be cool about it. After all, it’ll solve his perpetual problem of which craft to launch and when.’
Yet Zac remains on top of Pip, brushing strands of hair from her face, from the corner of her mouth. Gazing and grinning and dipping his lips to hers. He sees she’s wearing a little mascara, that it’s smudged slightly beneath her right eye. She smells very nice. He likes the way her bottom teeth are ever so slightly crooked. He notices a small mole on her jaw for the first time. He sucks an ear lobe. They’re pierced but she doesn’t wear earrings. He could buy her a pair for Christmas.
God, he’d love to see her breasts bare right now, rather than having to remind himself how they look by feeling them through her clothing. He’d like to get naked with her immediately. Take his time making love to her. It would be new. He now has but a vague memory of sex with Pip not being all that great. But he has a growing feeling – and not just in his trousers – that making love might be a whole class apart.
