The McCabe Girls Complete Collection

by Freya North

  They actually only live a mile or so from his home in Swiss Cottage and, though Tom spends every Tuesday, Wednesday and every other weekend with them, and any time in between that he fancies, the novelty value is still high. His dad’s place is closer to school than his other home so instead of his mum slaloming her Renault through the school run (which has its plus points because she appears unaware how much she swears) Tom strolls down Hampstead High Street with his stepmum. And, without actually holding hands (He’s nine now, someone might see), Tom can still subliminally tug her into a detour to Starbucks for hot chocolate.

  Tom’s had Pip for nearly four years. Her presence at the school gates continues to provide much intrigue. Being a clown by trade, Pip is well known to many of Tom’s classmates from the birthday-party circuit of their younger years. She’s also been to assembly to talk about the other work she does, as a clown at children’s hospitals. She did the splits and a flikflak on the stage, bonked the headmaster on the head with a squeaky plastic hammer, made a motorbike from balloons in four seconds flat and Tom was the centre of attention all that day. His friends still make a point of saying hullo to her when she collects him. Invariably, she has rushed to school from the hospital, with her hair still in skew-whiff pigtails and traces of make-up on her face. Far more exotic than the widespread Whistles and ubiquitous Nicole Farhi worn by the other mums.

  This Tuesday was no different. There was Pip, eye-catching in orange-and-purple stripy tights and clodhopping boots, chatting amiably with the other Hampstead mums.

  ‘Hi, I’m starving. It was shepherd’s pie for lunch. Heinous,’ said Tom, keen to drag her away.

  ‘Dear oh dear,’ said Pip, ‘heinous shepherd’s pie? I’d turn vegetarian, if I were you.’

  ‘No way, José,’ Tom retched. ‘The veggie option is always vomtastic.’

  ‘Vomtastic,’ Pip marvelled, planning to use the word in her clowning. ‘How was football?’

  Tom gave a small shrug. ‘Cold.’

  ‘Are you angling for a brownie and hot choc?’ Pip nudged him.

  ‘If you say so,’ Tom said.

  ‘Well, your dad won’t be home till sevenish,’ Pip reasoned with herself, as much as with Tom.

  ‘It would be very good for my energy,’ Tom said not entirely ingenuously. ‘Starbucks would really help my homework.’

  Pip laughed. ‘Come on, tinker,’ she said. They walked towards the High Street. ‘I had a sad day at the hospital. It’s lovely to see you.’

  Tom slipped his hand into hers. Just for a few strides or so.

  Pip looked at the kitchen table laden with the remains of supper later that evening, then she looked at her husband and his son embroiled in PlayStation. She put her hands on her hips and cleared her throat. They didn’t look up.

  ‘Hullo?’ she called, as if testing whether anyone was there.

  Zac glanced up briefly from the console, but not briefly enough to prevent Tom taking advantage.

  ‘Dad!’ Tom objected. ‘Concentrate!’

  And then Pip decided She’d just smile and ask if anyone wanted a drink. She still found it difficult to gauge her boundaries as a stepmother. Her own standards, based on her childhood and her family’s dynamic, said that a nine-year-old should help clear the table, or at least ask to be excused a chore. But she also acknowledged that this father and son hadn’t seen each other for a week and Zac had been first down from the table challenging Tom to a PlayStation final-of-finals. So she tidied up and allowed them their quality time.

  She glanced at the clock and felt relieved that it really was nearing Tom’s bedtime. Zac had worked so late the last couple of nights she felt she hadn’t seen him at all. ‘I’ll run your bath, Tom,’ she said.

  ‘One more game,’ Zac called to her.

  ‘I’ll run it slowly,’ Pip said.

  Despite actually trying his damndest to win, Zac lost at PlayStation. Far from being wounded, his pride soared at Tom’s skill and after a noisy bathtime, he cuddled up with his son for a lengthy dip into James and the Giant Peach. Pip could hear the soft timbre of Zac’s reading voice. She poured two glasses of wine and organized Tom’s school bag for the morning.

  Zac appeared and made the fast-asleep gesture with his hands. ‘He was tired,’ he said.

  ‘Well, It’s late for him,’ said Pip, offering a glass of wine.

  Zac looked at his watch. ‘I just have a little work to do,’ he told Pip who looked instantly deflated, ‘just an hour or so.’ He took the wine, kissed Pip on the lips, squeezed her bottom and disappeared with his laptop. He’s happy, Pip told herself. She looked on the bright side, which was very much her wont. At least it gave her the opportunity to phone Cat, as long as her youngest sister had been able to resist the jet lag on her first day back in the country.

  Many would say that being a high-flying accountant would have its ups and downs: financial remuneration in return for long hours and often relatively dull work; a bulging pay packet to compensate for a dry grey image. How else would accountants have become such a clichéd race? But the only things grey about Zac Holmes are his eyes which are dark slate to the point of being navy anyway, and the only dry thing about Zac is his sense of humour. If Zac’s looks and his personality had dictated a career, it would have been something on the funky side of creative. But Zac’s brain, with its amazing propensity for figures, decreed accountancy from the outset. Anything else just wouldn’t be logical. Zac likes logic, he likes straightforward solutions and simple answers to even the most complex of problems. Consequently, he never judges anything to be a dilemma because he knows intrinsically that there is always a way to work it all out. Zac believes that problems are merely perceived as such. If you just sit down and think carefully, there’s nothing that can’t be solved. Problems don’t really exist at all, it comes down to attitude. That goes for his personal life as much as his professional. So, when ten years ago, his on-off girlfriend announced she was pregnant a few weeks after a forgettable drunken friendship fuck, Zac welcomed the news with a shrug and easily devised a formula that would suit them all.

  2 firm friends + 0 desire to marry/cohabit

  (+ never ÷ by £/♡ issues)

  = great + modern parents

  = 1 lucky child.

  June, the mother of his child, can never be an ex-wife or ex-girlfriend because she was neither when Tom was conceived. She’s Zac’s friend and Zac is her friend and for Tom to have parents who are friends is a gift. Tom also has two step-parents. Everyone is friends. It might appear unconventional, but it works. A large family of friends.

  Django McCabe may have trawled the sixties, trekking from ashram to commune, hiking from yurt to kibbutz, in search of the same. But he was happy to admit that his eldest niece had found its apotheosis in London NW3.

  Pip is hovering. Zac’s hour at his laptop has turned into two.

  ‘Coffee?’ she offers.

  ‘No, ta,’ says Zac, ‘need to crack on.’

  ‘Tea?’ she suggests.

  ‘Nope, I’m fine thanks, Mrs,’ says Zac. ‘I have to knock this on its head.’

  ‘Whisky?’

  ‘No, nothing – I’m good. Thanks.’

  ‘Rampant sex?’

  ‘Tempting – on any other night. I have to work. Seriously.’

  ‘One of my very special blow-jobs?’

  Zac looks at his screen. He has a very good head for figures. But if there’s one figure that gives very good head, It’s Pip. His eyes don’t leave his laptop, his finger hovers above the mouse-pad. ‘A special blow-job?’ Zac asks, as if It’s a deal-breaker. ‘Not just a standard one?’

  ‘Trust me,’ Pip winks.

  ‘Because,’ says Zac, ‘if It’s just run-of-the-mill sucky-sucky, I’ll pass. This audit is crucial.’

  ‘I’m not capable of run-of-the-mill sucky-sucky,’ Pip clarifies, hands on her hips, chin up.

  ‘I mean, I’m talking cosmic, Pip,’ Zac stipulates with a lasciviously raised eyebrow. ‘It needs to b
e mind-blowing.’

  ‘I assure you It’s not just your mind I’ll be blowing.

  ’ Finally, Zac looks from his laptop to Pip, then back again. Contriving a sigh, as if he was doing her the favour, he logs off. ‘I’m sure the powers that be will understand,’ he says.

  ‘I’ll write your boss a note,’ says Pip. ‘I’ll tell him the dog ate your homework.’ She takes Zac by the hand and leads him to the bedroom. They undress silently and have rude sex as quietly as they can.

  Matt had come back from work early, made sausages, mash and onion gravy. Perfect for a cold January night and essential for his girlfriend who’d told him she hadn’t had time to eat more than toast and Marmite during the day. He’d bought a DVD too, which Fen managed to stay awake through despite snuggling up against the cosiness of Matt’s chest. Now She’s reading in bed and Matt is nuzzling the fragrant softness of his girlfriend’s neck. His cock is surprisingly responsive. He’d only intended to kiss her goodnight. He didn’t know he had the energy to feel horny.

  ‘How did we make Cosima again?’ Matt whispers, running his hand the length of Fen’s thigh, spooning against her, the sensation of her buttocks against his erection causing his pelvis to rock automatically, his hands to travel up along her torso. He bypasses her breasts. They’re Cosima’s for the time being. He doesn’t really mind, It’s lucky He’s always been a legs and bum man. And his hands sweep down to Fen’s thighs again, and over them, and around. And he walks his fingers up through the fuzz of her sex then attempts to tiptoe them down in between.

  Fen’s hand joins his. ‘I do want to,’ she announces, a tinge of apology, a ring of reluctance, which stills Matt’s hand immediately. ‘I’m just really really tired. Sorry.’

  ‘I bet I can have you in the mood; bet you I can have you hollering for mercy,’ he tells her. He always used to be able to. He leans across her and kisses her, pulls her to face him, holds her against him. He rocks his groin gently against her, takes her hand down to his perky cock and works his hands over her body. He is not sure whether He’s taken her breath away or whether She’s holding it to pull her stomach in. But he feels her stiffen, and a glance at her face, where anxiety is mixed with reluctance, causes him to turn away from her, to stare at the ceiling with a sigh.

  ‘Do I feel different to you?’ she asks. ‘I’m still so squidgy and unattractive.’ And then she mutters that she shouldn’t have had all that bangers and mash.

  ‘You look gorgeous,’ Matt says, ‘I keep telling you. God. Wasn’t my raging hard-on proof enough how much I fancy you?’

  Fen shrugs and looks downcast. ‘I know you do,’ she says quietly, ‘but I have to fancy myself, too, to feel horny.’

  ‘Will you give yourself a break,’ Matt says. He switches off the bedside light and kisses her lightly on the shoulder. ‘Stop being silly.’

  Fen lies in the dark, wide-eyed and confused and wishing they had a spare room she could withdraw to. She encourages a hot, oily tear to sting its way from the corner of her eye and slick down her cheek and onto the pillow. She knows It’s bizarre, but rather than being bolstered by Matt’s assurances that he loves and lusts for her however she feels she looks, She’s cross that he appears to trivialize her concerns, her loss of confidence, her fragile self-image.

  He called me silly. For the second time today. Silly is a stupid, insensitive word to use. He just doesn’t understand.

  God. It’s gone midnight. Cosima will wake in a couple of hours. I have to get some sleep.

  DJANGO MCCABE

  AND THE NIT-PICKIN’ CHICKS

  Though only three years separated the oldest and youngest of the McCabe sisters, Cat had always been very much the baby of the family. She was a little shorter than Pip and Fen, her features more petite. She lacked Pip’s aptitude for performing, to entertain, which gave her eldest sister her apparent sassy confidence. Nor did she have Fen’s self-containment, her ability to seem so quietly self-possessed, so attractively serene. While Pip and Fen had encountered the various dramas in their lives head-on and for the most part single-handedly and discretely, Cat had always simply stood there and cried loudly for help. It wasn’t that she was particularly feeble, nor was she excessively attention-seeking or spoilt; Cat was accustomed to being looked after because there was something about her that inspired others to care for her. Ben believed it was to do with the arrangement of her features; her large eyes set winsomely around the childlike upturn to her nose which led down to the natural pout to her lips. It compelled one to offer protection, even if it was not specifically needed or asked for. However, Cat’s strength was that she was never too proud to ask. She’d grown up knowing that what made her feel strong and able was the presence of her support network, her sisters in particular.

  When Cat had gone to live in America with a relatively new boyfriend (as Ben was then) and brand new job, everyone anticipated floods of tears to wash her soon back again. But the anticipated plea to be rescued never came. Her letters and e-mails and phone calls attested to her happiness, and her occasional visits home confirmed this. Her apparent self-sufficiency was a source of joy and relief for her family and soon enough they were delighted for her that She’d gone. Not half so thrilled as they are now, four years later, that she has come back.

  Being swept north by rail for their family reunion, the McCabe sisters were initially preoccupied with three-way inane grinning and quietly assessing physical details and changes.

  ‘So.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So!’

  ‘You’re back.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘For good?’

  ‘Indeed. For better, for worse.’

  ‘I do love your hair,’ Pip told Cat. ‘When you e-mailed to say you’d gone short and red, I had visions of a ginger buzz-cut.’

  ‘It’s very gamine,’ Fen said whilst hastily retying hers into a hopefully smoother pony-tail, ‘very Audrey Hepburn. God I feel a dowdy frump.’

  ‘You don’t think It’s too short?’ Cat asked them. ‘And You’re sure you like the colour? Yours is so much longer,’ she said to Fen, ‘and darker.’

  ‘That’s probably because It’s greasy,’ Fen said. She took a twist of her hair and scrutinized the ends. ‘I can’t remember the last time I went to the hairdresser.’

  ‘Go this weekend,’ Pip said. ‘Django will know somewhere.’

  ‘When did he last go to a barber?’ Cat interrupted. ‘You’re not telling me He’s chopped off his pony-tail? I expected things to change while I’ve been abroad – but nothing that drastic.’

  ‘It’s still his crowning glory,’ Pip assured her with a smile.

  ‘How’s he been?’ Cat asked.

  ‘Fine and dandy,’ Pip said. ‘Same as ever, really.’

  ‘It’s funny, initially I’d curse him for not having e-mail, but actually I loved receiving his letters and writing back,’ Cat said. ‘I’ve kept them all. They’re hysterical. He’d send me the TV listings page every single week so I could keep up with Corrie.’

  ‘Zac and I bought him an answering machine for his last birthday – but he took it back,’ Pip said. ‘I suggested a mobile phone – but you can imagine what he said.’

  ‘Talking of birthdays, I wonder what we’ll do for his,’ Cat said brightly. ‘Can you believe he’ll be seventy-five this spring?’

  ‘he’ll either throw a huge party – or go on a retreat,’ Pip said. ‘In which case we’ll make him a surprise party.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Cat. She gazed at the sleeping baby nustled up to Fen in a papoose. ‘Cosima is so beautiful,’ she said dreamily, watching Fen’s fingers tap out a mother’s instinctive, gentle rhythm against the baby’s back. Absent-mindedly, Cat rolled her thumb against her wedding ring. ‘Still no plans to wed then, Fen?’ She felt Pip glance at her.

  Fen balked. ‘What an odd thing to say.’

  ‘Sorry – I just mean, you know, since you now have a baby.’

  ‘Shock, horror, an illegitimate ch
ild? Is that what You’re implying?’ Fen said.

  ‘Blimey Fen, I was only teasing,’ Cat said, because she had been. She glanced back at Pip who, ever the diplomat, decided it was a good idea to change the subject.

  ‘I’m hungry,’ said Pip.

  ‘I’m hungry now too,’ said Fen. ‘Do you think Django’s made a late lunch for us?’

  ‘Followed almost immediately by an enormous tea with just time enough to burp before a Spread for supper?’ Cat laughed.

  ‘I’ll go and buy sandwiches for us,’ said Pip.

  ‘And salt-and-vinegar crisps!’ Cat called after her. Fen smiled at her. Cat turned her gaze out to the English countryside zipping by outside the train. So different to Colorado, where she had remained in awe of her surroundings. Here, the scale was comfortingly familiar, if a little tame by comparison, the colours darker, damper.

  ‘Sorry about before,’ Fen said. ‘I’ve been horribly snappish, lately. I hate it and I can’t help it. I’m just so tired. And – well – things at home have been a little strained.’

  Cat watched Fen’s gaze drop. She’d been shocked by the physical change in Fen, the wan complexion, the dark eyes, puffiness here and a general lankness there. Objectively, Fen had always been the true beauty of the three of them; her features and complexion adding refinement where Pip was just pretty, where Cat was simply cute. Today, though, Cat noticed a certain pallor now veiling this.

  ‘Is it Matt?’ Cat broached, though She’d intended to seek details from Pip later.

  ‘I don’t know, Cat,’ Fen said, a tear clouding one eye, ‘but I think it might be me. My love for my baby is so primal and complete that sometimes I feel like running away so It’s just the two of us.’

  ‘Don’t do that,’ Cat said and she reached across the melamine for her sister’s wrist, ‘please don’t do that. I’ve just come thousands of miles to be back in my family fold. I want Cosima to get to know her Auntie Cat. And when I am pregnant, I’ll need you within arm’s reach to tell me how to do it all properly.’