by Judy Astley
‘So, are we so completely broke that we’ll have to go without dessert?’ Monica enquired cheerfully as Bernard snapped shut the calculator and started pouring more wine.
‘Frankly, yes,’ he said, though his face had an amused and unconvincing look, as if he didn’t really expect to be believed. Monica seemed to take that to mean ‘Frankly, no’ and continued to butter her bread roll thickly, but Alan was looking quite pale, and Jenny felt mildly aggrieved that the situation at work was obviously so much worse than he had been admitting, as if she was just a fluffy little wife who needed to be protected from such knowledge. Alan could be out of work and searching for a job this time next week, and he’d still be telling her not to worry about it. A serious career of her own should have been taken up a long time ago, not just dabbling in a spot of teaching from home as a kind of frill with which to add decorative extras to their family life. She prayed briefly that the sending out of her CVs would be fruitful. Just as the waiter put before her a plate of lobster ravioli, her stomach contracted at the thought of even more years of Polly’s school fees. She didn’t need a calculator to tell her that she and Alan were going to need (at current prices, and the fees went up annually) at least £33,600 to educate their third child, and that wasn’t available from Social Security, so she added another quick prayer for Polly’s exam results to yield a scholarship.
‘. . . Well I suppose we’ll have to draw straws for who has to give up their company car, ha ha ha!’ Bernard was saying. Jenny watched Alan grin fawningly and felt annoyed. Was Bernard so close to retirement that he actually no longer cared? He must have some treble-protected multi-bonus pension scheme he was dying to get his hands on, she thought, but what about the rest of them? ‘Bought Monica a little runabout, such a good wheeze, we use it all the time,’ he said.
‘Classic car,’ Monica murmured through a mouthful of salmon ravioli.
‘Oh yes? I’ve got one, an MG Midget; restored it myself!’ Frankie told her proudly. Jenny could just imagine Frankie, all square in mechanic’s overalls, hauling herself under a car with a big bag of spanners.
‘Got her a Morris Traveller. Nothing fancy, moss in the joins and a spot of woodworm, but the insurance is a dream.’ Bernard leaned across eagerly.
‘Do it up and it’s worth a fortune. I should know,’ Frankie said.
‘Ah, but that’s the thing!’ Bernard announced triumphantly. ‘You qualify for Classic Car insurance, and if you do less than five thousand miles . . .’
‘But whoever does?’ Jenny asked.
Bernard looked round furtively and took a quick sip of wine before confiding, ‘If you do less than five thousand, the insurance is absolutely down to peanuts. You simply disconnect the clock! Now isn’t that a good old piece of accountancy advice for you? Free too!’
‘It sucks,’ said Frankie, in honest disgust. Jenny thought about the dingy used car lot at the back of the estate where the residents traded beaten-up Fiestas for beaten-up Escorts. Notices on each windscreen denied responsibility for the mileage on the cars’ clocks, and Ministry of Transport officials checked it over on a regular basis, along with the police. The place seemed to be under constantly changing management. Eventually nice, trustworthy Monica would sell her priceless Morris. The ad would say something along the lines of ‘careful lady owner, exceptionally low mileage’ and her word would not be doubted.
There was a bit of a silence after that. Jenny watched Serena applying pâté to a tiny square of toast, her long, pink-polished, fingernails holding it delicately as if the harsh little crumbs might chip at her nail varnish. Jenny imagined those hands caressing her husband, wondered if even in the deepest thrashings of passion she handled Alan with such daintiness, fearful of damaging her manicure.
‘And what do you do?’ came a polite, social question from Frankie to Jenny.
‘I teach flute – when I can get the pupils,’ Jenny told her. ‘At the moment I’m getting the impression that music lessons are among the little extras that get cut back when times are hard,’ she sighed. ‘It’s the same in schools, sadly, the state ones can’t afford the outside staff, and parents struggling to pay school fees can’t afford lessons as well, so only the children of the super-rich are learning to play anything.’
‘Must be getting like back in the historic days when music was purely an accomplishment for affluent young women,’ Monica chipped in.
Frankie retorted sharply, ‘Unless you were a man and were allowed to turn yourself into a genius composer. I always wondered why girls who showed prodigious talents like Mozart’s were never encouraged too, then we might have some female composers of real substance as well. There must have been some surely.’
‘Too busy putting in the necessary hours of embroidery and poetry-reciting I expect, preparing to catch a husband,’ Jenny replied and then laughed. ‘Plus, if any parent, governess or tutor could get a boy to sit still for more than ten minutes and get engrossed in one activity, they were probably only too happy to encourage them to stay there and get on with it. I know I would be!’
From across the table Serena leaned across and speared a slice of lemon from Frankie’s plate. She sat sucking at it without wincing, listening to them laughing. ‘That’s what it was all about though, wasn’t it?’ she said suddenly, ‘Learning to entertain a husband. It isn’t much different now, really, there are still women out there – can you believe it? – who live off their husbands! Can you imagine not earning one’s own living? Otherwise it’s just prostitution!’
Jenny looked at her for signs of irony, but there was nothing but the expectation of approval on Serena’s smiling, porcelain face. Monica was shuffling her napkin around and frowning. ‘There are other important things beside earning a living in the financial sense. A husband’s income can be shared with his wife for more than just sex,’ Jenny said.
Monica beamed agreement, saying, ‘Well yes, absolutely. There’s children for one thing, and charity work once they’re grown up. I’d have thought you feminists would value child-rearing as a valid occupation.’
Jenny thought for a minute and said, ‘Also, it could be considered socially responsible to stay out of the job market if you don’t really need two incomes. The most important thing there, surely, is that it’s not just women who should be allowed that choice. Although not many families these days can exist on one income.’
Alan was watching her, she could feel his gaze and his attention on her. Frankie reached across her with a forkful of monkfish and Serena’s cherry mouth opened to bite it.
‘Mmmm. Adore it,’ she murmured silkily. Frankie smiled lovingly at her friend and Jenny felt she’d been violently clouted by a sudden recognition. Frankie and Serena shared a lot more than just an apartment. Oh poor Alan, she thought, he clearly had absolutely no idea.
Polly was getting to like cider, even though it tasted a bit sour at first. It left a lovely sharp appley flavour in her mouth and made her feel happy, like when she was allowed champagne on family birthdays. Daisy and Oliver were somewhere in the blurry distance, interestingly entwined on a sofa. She’d tried creeping up and listening to what they said, to see if they were discussing sex, but Daisy had told her to sod off and go and find somewhere to sleep. Polly actually was quite tired now, but back on her chair when she closed her eyes the room seemed to lurch over her head, as if she was forever swooping backwards to the top of the big wheel at the fair. The music was too loud, and there was a constant buzzing of voices, pierced sometimes by the kind of shriek that wrenched her all the way back from the edge of sleep. She decided that perhaps she should go and find a quiet bed to lie on just for a little while, and crept up the stairs past a mass of gabbling girls who were talking about the best age for losing virginity. Polly knew she must be unbelievably tired; she didn’t feel any real urge to hang around and listen to them like she normally would, but just continued up, holding carefully onto the banisters as the fairground feeling whirled along with her even when she was walking around.
>
‘Ben!’ she called into Sophie’s bedroom, ‘are you in there? I’m tired! Is it nearly time to go home?’ No-one answered, so she tip-toed across the dark room to the bed, climbing onto it and looking forward to nestling into a pile of coats that people had left there.
‘Polly! Will you get off!’ Polly thudded heavily on to the floor and looked up at Ben and Emma, their blurry faces close together, peering down at her from the bed. They should have said they were there, hiding under the coats, why didn’t they?
‘Oh God, she’s completely pissed! Where’s Daisy?’ Ben demanded grabbing Polly’s wrists.
‘Dunno. With some bloke downstairs,’ Polly slurred back at him.
Emma switched on a bedside light and Polly’s curiosity flickered briefly alive again as she noticed her fumbling about under her shirt and refastening her black lacy bra. That would be something else to tell Harriet, was her last waking thought.
‘Should we get Sophie’s parents, do you think?’ Downstairs, Ben watched a furious Daisy unwrap herself from Oliver on the sofa. Oliver grinned lazily up at him and winked.
‘Don’t be stupid, Sophie would kill us. And then they might tell our parents too,’ Daisy growled at him. ‘We’ll just have to take her home and put her to bed.’
‘I don’t think she can walk,’ Emma pointed out, looking to where Polly sat propped against the stairs, her head lolling like an old rag-doll’s on her chest.
‘Then Ben will have to carry her,’ Daisy snapped. She bit her lip and tried to think quickly about how much money she had with her. A taxi would be the best thing, especially as her poor toe hurt more than ever, though a driver might refuse to take Polly in that state. Suppose she was sick all over the cab? And maybe it was illegal for Polly to be that drunk, he might tell someone and there might be police trouble again. And it was nearly midnight, so they’d get charged more.
‘We’ll all go. Shouldn’t be too difficult if Ben and I support her.’ Oliver took charge, in the hope that he would earn enough gratitude from Daisy to take him right on to fourth base next time they got together, or even on to a home run. There wasn’t a lot of progress to be made anyway, lying on a very public sofa with people falling, dancing and yelling all around them, though the signs had been extremely promising.
Daisy, Oliver, Emma and Ben tried to look casual and unobtrusive as they walked Polly down the road towards home, terrified that marauding police with nothing better to do at midnight would stop and ask what they were up to. Ben and Oliver took an arm each, and Polly’s unco-ordinated feet hardly needed to touch the pavement. Her tousled head flopped up and down and she moaned quietly and constantly. By the time they got to the end of the Close, Daisy was limping painfully, her little toe now rubbed down to what felt like the bone. She was sure it was bleeding all over the inside of her lovely boot, and that her foot was sliding around in a puddle.
‘You should have asked Sophie for a plaster,’ Emma told her, holding her arm and helping her to walk.
‘I know, I know. Hang on a sec, I’ll take them off. I can’t stand it any more, and I’ll do better without them,’ she said, plonking herself down onto the kerb. So when Carol and Paul Mathieson drove the Peugeot carefully and soberly round the corner by Sue’s house they immediately came across the sight of Daisy sprawled on the pavement inspecting her foot, Polly slumped against the fence leaning on Ben, and Oliver and Emma sharing the lighting of a cigarette.
‘Are you all right? Is there anything we can do?’ Carol asked politely, looking at Daisy’s exposed foot.
Polly stiffened suddenly and sat up. ‘I feel really sick,’ she wailed. Ben looked at Daisy, and they both looked at Carol, all telepathically agreeing that they couldn’t even think of taking Polly home in that state, whatever the consequences.
Chapter Sixteen
Paul was astounded. If he wasn’t absolutely certain that she’d only had one small sherry in the interval, he’d have thought Carol was quite paralytic. Taking all these people into the house at this time of night! Whatever was she thinking of?
Carol was being briskly practical, even in her silk frock. The child was clearly very drunk, and the teenagers didn’t seem to have a clue what to do with her. They just skulked against the wall and draped themselves uselessly over the banisters. And they were so big. ‘It might be better if she is actually sick,’ Carol told Daisy. ‘That way, she might not feel so dreadful tomorrow, and at least some of the alcohol will be safely out of her. It’s really quite dangerous for her to be in this state.’ Daisy and Ben stared, ashamed, at the hall rug. Carol bustled Polly into the downstairs cloakroom and propped her up against the sink. ‘Paul, go and get a large glass of warm water will you?’
No ‘please’, he noted sorrowfully, automatically going to the kitchen to do as he was told. She’d been in such a good mood too, after Charley’s Aunt, chatting away in the car and hinting that it would be nice to be home, in the warm. To their warm bed was where he’d planned to take her next, till they’d come across this rabble in the road.
‘Are you going to give her salt water?’ Emma asked Carol, trying to take an intelligent interest.
‘Definitely not! That could kill her, the salt gets through to the kidneys before you know it and she could die of dehydration. Don’t ever make that mistake,’ Carol told her. Emma moved closer to Daisy for comfort, and they went and sat on the stairs together, Daisy rubbing her bleeding toe and hoping it wouldn’t drip on the beige carpet. She put her hands over her ears as Polly started vomiting noisily.
‘Won’t your parents be home by now?’ Paul asked Ben. ‘Wouldn’t it be best if your own mother took care of her?’
Where had they taken her, he wanted to ask, they all smelt of a sordid party, the wafts of stale cigarette smoke and alcohol that were coming from them all. Surely they could have taken better care of Polly than this? Daisy was definitely off Marcus and Sebastian’s babysitting list.
‘Don’t be silly, Paul,’ came Carol’s voice. ‘They don’t want Alan and Jenny to know about this. There’s no need for them to. After all, I don’t think this is likely to happen again, is it?’ She put her head round the cloakroom door, pink fluffy towel in hand and gave Daisy a surprisingly conspiratorial grin.
Ben was shocked. Carol had always seemed so prissy, so rule-bound. He wasn’t sure he liked her like this. He’d been waiting for her to start the telling-off. He liked to rely on her unchanging staidness, the certain knowledge that there was a 100 per cent guaranteed no chance at all of seducing her (or better still, of her seducing him). That way the impossible fantasies stayed exciting.
She needs the boys home more often, Paul thought as he watched Carol fondly and tenderly stroking Polly’s damp hair away from her unfocused eyes and flushed face. Something to take care of that isn’t just me and those bloody cats. He sighed and went up the stairs, wondering if it was worthwhile switching on the electric blanket; Carol only liked sex in a pre-warmed bed, otherwise she shivered and found it impossible to loosen up, and complained that her feet stuck out of the duvet edges and got cold. He passed the bedroom door and went on up to his attic. He might not be allowed actually to tell Alan and Jenny about their dreadful children, but it couldn’t possibly go unreported in the files. It was an Incident, it had Happened. He took down the yellow folder (number 14, Collins) and sat down at his tidy desk, sorrowfully conceding that this was the only kind of entry he was likely to be making that night.
Outside the restaurant, Jenny handed Alan the car keys and he gave them straight back.
‘Look,’ she said quietly, unlocking the car and giving final goodbye smiles to Bernard and Monica who were loading themselves into their ancient Morris Traveller, ‘I don’t want to have a silly argument in the car park, with everyone standing around saying goodbye, but I really think I’m too much over the limit to do the driving.’ Alan slid into the passenger seat, saying, ‘We should have sorted it out earlier. I thought we had and that it was your turn. I’m over the limit too, and
if I lose my licence, well . . .’
‘Are you saying that it’s less important if I get banned for a year than if it’s you?’ Jenny argued, thinking of all the school runs that could no longer be done, the Sainsbury’s bags that would have to be lugged home on the bus with all the tartan-trolley old age pensioners, the impossible last-minute pleadings from Daisy and Ben, ‘Please Mum, I said I’d meet Emma at 5 and it’s gone that already.’ Who else was there to do all that? And did any of them really matter? Other people got by.
‘No, it’s not that, I’m terribly tired, though,’ Alan said feebly, leaning his head against the cool, misted side window. ‘And anyway, you’re a better driver than me.’
‘Flattery,’ she growled. ‘OK, I’ll drive, but I’m not happy and it’ll take ages. You’ll have to talk to me, keep me awake.’
Jenny swung the car out into the unlit road and tried to see beyond the headlights just where the road went. Alan, already half-asleep, grunted, and she reconciled herself to a long journey in which she had to drive and talk to herself.
‘Funny, isn’t it,’ she said to Alan’s inert body. ‘People like us do this all the time, think they’re just about OK, and take the risk anyway. Kids from the estate nick cars and drive around in them and the police treat them as if they’re handling a murder-weapon. Which they are. But then so are we. We get fines and a ban for a while and they get Care and detention centres. It only really hits us in the insurance premiums in the long run, but they are probably made permanently unemployable.’
‘Mmm,’ Alan murmured, not really listening. He was still thinking about Serena being whisked away from the restaurant in Frankie’s immaculately renovated MG. If he’d taken Serena out in something sporty like that, instead of the sensible BMW, perhaps she’d have admired him as a bit more dynamic, more thrusting. All the years he’d despised the sort of men who bought cars as sexual power symbols, assuming they were making up for inadequacy, but perhaps, now that he was middle-aged and lacking any other visible sexual totems, he could concede that they had a point.
