by Laura Marney
Chapter 4
I answered the door to someone who had a large gift-wrapped bush for a head.
‘Delivery for McNicholl,’ said a bad American accent.
I recognised the Nike trainers but I entered into the spirit of things.
‘Oh! Is it a singing telegram?’ I gasped, ‘I’ve always wanted a singing telegram.’
The bush said nothing. I gently pulled leaves and stalks aside to reveal Steven’s beetroot-red face.
‘D’you want to let me in?’ he said in his more usual bored tone as he took a step forward. I stood barring his way.
‘I’m sorry I don’t think I know that one.’
‘Mum!’
‘Okay, okay, come on in.’
Luckily I wasn’t long in myself. I hadn’t had a chance to get the fags out of my bag never mind light up yet so there was no smoke smell. He made the formal presentation of the large house plant in the kitchen.
‘Happy birthday Mum.’
It was a beautiful thing with red and yellow, green and orange leaves. The most beautiful plant in the world. I wanted to sit down and cry. I wanted to throw my arms round my son and hear him say, ‘It’s all right Mum, let it all out.’ I wanted to take the time for a good howl and then gradually, when I was ready, let my crying tail off to the occasional sob. I wanted Steven to rub my back and say, ‘You okay now Mum? You sure?’ I wanted to blow my nose, crack a silly joke and smile. Pick myself up, dust myself off, start all over again.
‘Thanks very much Son, it’s lovely.’
‘Sorry it’s a day early but I’ve got training tomorrow night and if I don’t go tomorrow I won’t get picked for Saturday.’
‘I know, I know. I’m pleased to see you Son. Had your dinner yet?’
‘No. I’m not hungry.’
‘Want chippy chips?’
‘Yeah. I’ll go.’
The last time we’d eaten together it was from the chippy. I really was going to have to start feeding that boy properly. Or rather when he came back to stay with me I’d have to start cooking proper meals. I just couldn’t be arsed cooking for one. I usually just had a sandwich from the fridge. Steven was a growing boy laying down the foundations of his adult frame, he needed proper nutrition, meat, protein, that sort of thing. Not suppers from the chippy.
‘What does Helga cook?’ I asked when he came back.
‘Dunno. A lot of stews.’
‘Sounds good.’
‘Nah, you get fed up with it, we’re sick of it.’
‘Are you? What Dad too? Is Dad’s sick of Helga’s cooking?’
‘Hmm, dunno.’
‘Yeah, you can’t beat a fish supper can you?’
Steven agreed. We sat down to watch The Weakest Link with our suppers on our knee.
‘I quite fancy Eric,’ said Steven.
Eric wasn’t fat or bald, he was a pharmaceutical rep. This was the nicest thing Steven could have said. As it turned out Eric was incredibly lucky. Loads of times he should have been nominated and wasn’t. He lasted all the way to the final. In the final his questions were pimps easy but he still got two wrong and it went to a tie-breaker. The other guy got a hard one and got it wrong letting Eric walk off with nearly three grand. We celebrated his victory as if it were our own, clinking our Irn Bru glasses.
The night just got better and better. I told Steven all about the antics at the training conference, embellishing it here and there to make him laugh. He did laugh, he was in the mood for a good laugh. He threw himself back in the chair at anything mildly amusing and filled the room with his booming laughter. Then we watched a daft teen movie. Although it was mildly sexy and a bit embarrassing for us both, it was hilariously funny. I made myself busy getting us tea and toast at the raunchy bits.
When the film ended I took him upstairs and formally unveiled his newly painted bedroom. Steven refused to believe I’d done it myself. He inspected the corners and under the window ledges, nodding approval and mumbling ‘Respect!’.
He noticed with horror that I’d got rid of his South Park duvet cover and replaced it with a new blue one. It was from the Men Only range in Marks, bought from my birthday vouchers. The choice was between plain blue on one side or broad blue and white stripes on the other. I pulled the duvet down to demonstrate.
‘What side d’you like best?’
‘Dunno’.
Steven had slipped his smelly trainers off hours ago in the living room and now he jumped fully clothed under the duvet to test it. He modelled it from every angle. Tossing and turning, kidding on he was asleep, he opened one eye and keeked in the wardrobe mirror. Then he lifted the duvet into the air balanced on his long slender arms and legs. Like the women in the circus he flicked it up into the air and over on to the striped side. He modelled it all over again.
‘Plain blue,’ he said eventually.
I knew he would choose that.
‘Mum, is it okay if I crash here tonight? I’m too knackered to go home, I’m just getting comfy here.’
‘Aye, no bother Son, what time do you want me to wake you?’
I could hardly believe it would be as straightforward as this. Steven was back home, back in his own room. It was the first night since Mum died that I fell asleep in a good mood.
I woke up the next morning in a good mood too but Steven didn’t. I was going about making breakfast singing along with the radio when he slouched into the kitchen.
‘D’you want to turn that radio down a bit?’
I kidded on I didn’t notice his mood.
‘Not really, I’m enjoying it thanks.’
I thought if I was as cheeky as he was I might cajole him out of it. I put down a cup of tea to him in the living room where he lay in his shorts and tea shirt, curled up in a ball. His legs seemed to have got even longer. The big knees seemed out of proportion on his coltish legs. Not only were his legs longer, they were hairy. Hair had started to grow up his legs. From ankle to mid calf he had a thick dark mane. Beyond that point only the blonde downy hair of a child. It put me in mind of the fetlocks on a Clydesdale horse or someone wearing moon boots. I brushed his hair off his face so I could see him and said as gently as I could, ‘are you going to get ready for school?’
He pulled away from me, tightening himself into a smaller ball. When I left for work he was still in the same position. I knew he would be late for school but I didn’t say anything.
Steven staying the night buoyed me up all day. I hardly smoked at all. I kept telling everyone it was my birthday, I even told some people I was forty. I was only slightly deflated when I got back from work and there was no mail.
I had another mystery caller with another mystery gift. Bob arrived with a massive bunch of my favourite flowers, flame orange roses. I didn’t know what to say. Bob wasn’t exactly dressed up but I could see he’d made an effort. He smelled faintly of Cool Water, aftershave I’d bought him three years ago on holiday in Spain. Surely it must be done by now? Bob wasn’t the type to buy himself fancy toiletries. Either it was the stuff I’d bought or Helga had bought him some more.
‘Eh, come in Robbie.’
I could see by his face that he recognised the jibe and no doubt where I’d heard it.
‘Lovely flowers. Valentine’s Day is next week.’
His face momentarily became a brighter shade than the roses as he hesitated at the door like a stranger. I could have kicked myself for taking him into the living room. After The Weakest Link I’d got out Mum’s malt whisky by way of a birthday celebration and tanned three fags one after the other. I moved quickly and just managed to plank the fags and ashtray under the couch before he came in. Bob pretended not to notice the wedge-shaped piece box of a Mark’s hoisin duck sandwich or the whisky bottle and single glass that sat there giving me a showing up. All I needed to complete the picture was a flickering candle stuck in a wee birthday cake for one.
‘Well, how unexpected,’ I chirped. ‘This is the third birthday party I’ve had so far. They had a wee
bash for me at work and then Steven and I had a good night last night.’
‘Yeah, Steven said he had a nice time,’ Bob confirmed.
He was trying to be nice. He handed me an inoffensive card and he’d brought a cake. Not a wee birthday cake, thank God, a carrot cake. He only took his coat off and sat down after I invited him to. I supposed seeing as he’d brought the cake I should offer him tea but he’d seen the whisky now anyway, the damage was done. I offered him one and to my surprise he was quite happy to take it. I poured large ones for us both.
‘Forty eh?’ Bob mused as he knocked half of it back. ‘I remember when you were twenty.’
I was a bit uncomfortable with this stroll down Memory Lane.
‘It puts everything into perspective though doesn’t it?’
Bob had turned forty the year before and I’d sent a sneeringly vindictive card. Perhaps now that I’d joined the ranks of the over-forties he’d come to crow. He could afford to. Bob was bearing up well under the burden of overfortyness. In fact he was flourishing. Playing five-a-sides twice a week and forswearing lager had kept a kyte at bay or at least down to a mere suggestion of a tummy. Bob had always looked grown up, even as a teenager he looked mature. Now he’d finally grown into his looks.
‘Makes you think. Especially with old Elsie dying and everything, God rest her soul. Makes you realise that life’s too short to spend arguing.’
I nodded agreement but now I had an idea what this was about. It was about the house. I was dreading what was coming next and topped up the glasses as quick as they were emptied. Though I tried not to show it, I was massively relieved to hear Bob say that he just wasn’t financially in a position to buy me out.
‘Not that I would I want to,’ he added emphatically.
He likewise appreciated that I didn’t have the means to buy him out. He said that he hoped I felt as he did: selling the flat would be fruitless.
Thank God he’s finally seen sense, I thought. He’d refused to see this point of view when we’d discussed it before. In fact we’d never properly discussed it before. In the past, fearful that he would sell the house from under me, I had used diversionary tactics. I referred to Helga as, ‘that Scandinavian slapper’. Then I got personal. I called Bob everything I could think of, including ‘a slut-humping house thief.’
The idea was to make him so angry that he’d start shouting. Then I knew I had him, I could justifiably say in a cold but determined way, ‘I think you’d better leave Bob.’
But I didn’t want him to leave now, not when we were on the same wavelength at last. And it got better.
‘And we have to think about Steven,’ he said. ‘He needs a proper home. He should be close to his school and his friends.’
I nodded my head in fervent agreement and poured another. Now we were cooking.
‘So, we can’t buy each other out, we can’t sell, what can we do?’
I knew he didn’t expect me to answer.
‘It is our home Trish. We could share it.’
Wow. Share it. That was a turn-up for the books, the last thing I expected him to say. I noticed he wasn’t saying get back together again. He wouldn’t dare. ‘Robbie’ wasn’t that brazen. He was the one who left me. But the idea did have a certain appeal: Steven would come home. I wouldn’t have to come back to an empty flat every night. Financially things could only get better. Maybe I could go part time or chuck my job all together. Now it all fell into place: the orange roses, the aftershave, the cake. Bob must be sick of slumming it with a girl half his age. Like so many married men he’d had his midlife crisis. Now he was fed up with Norwegian stew and wanted to crawl back home to the wife.
Relaxed by the whisky I sat back and puzzled this new development out. I didn’t know if I could take him back. Two years was a long time, I might have taken a lover. I could’ve realised what I’d been missing all these years and taken a succession of lovers. I could’ve had them lining up in the street for all Bob knew. Things had changed, he was going to have to accept that. I wasn’t the daft wee housewife he’d abandoned two years ago. I was calling the shots now. If Bob wanted back certain demands would have to be met. I couldn’t think of them off the top of my head but I was sure they’d come to me. If he came back he’d have to take me as he found me. We’d have separate rooms, there were three bedrooms after all. We could take it a bit at a time, I thought.
‘I don’t know Bob. I’ll have to think about it. It’s a bit of a bombshell.’
‘I know. Take your time. I realise it’s a bit radical but it’s the only real solution we have.’
‘And what about Helga?’
‘Helga understands the situation. She’s been really good about it.’
I actually felt a bit sorry for poor wee Helga. I wondered if she’d just pack up her stew pots and head back to Norway. Bob sat there with a nervous begging smile on his face.
‘Kiss me,’ I dared him.
I would never have believed that asking your husband for a kiss could feel so racy. When had he last kissed Helga? He’d kissed her goodbye now. I moved across the room to sit beside him on the couch and cupped his face in my hands. His eyes kept dancing across my face and I wondered if he was going to take the dare. Bob planted a light kiss on my lips obeying the letter of the challenge if not the spirit. I grabbed him and snogged the face off him. Like riding a bike, you never forget how to do it. Bob responded and after a long and satisfying winch he came up for air.
This was a very different kiss from our last one. I couldn’t even remember our last official kiss. I did remember being worried about Mum and pushing him away a lot. Well, I didn’t have to worry about Mum anymore. And if kissing was going to be like this I wouldn’t be pushing him away. With the passion of the kiss the couch must have moved back slightly. The corner of the fag packet was now just keeking out from under it. I swept my hand across the carpet and tried to push it back under but I’d been rumbled.
‘Oh you naughty naughty girl,’ Bob laughed. ‘It’s no use trying to hide it, I smelled the smoke off your breath anyway.’
I laughed as well, it was a fair cop. Bob and I gave up smoking together years ago to pay for Steven’s school trip to France. But when we were out with friends we used to sneak fly draws of other people’s. I reckoned Bob still did. In a slow tease I took a cigarette from the packet and handed him the lighter.
‘Light me.’
I lay down on the couch. As the cigarette smouldered between my lips I sucked the warm smoke down and then seductively blew in Bob’s face. I knew he felt the craving as much as me.
‘Helga doesn’t like smoking.’
I giggled. No doubt there were a lot of things Helga didn’t like and I was confident that Bob would dish the dirt. There would be plenty of time for bitching.
He put his hand up to his face and waved the smoke away.
‘No, seriously. It really upsets her. She’s allergic.’
I had another fit of the giggles.
‘Well, it’s just as well she’s not coming too!’
Bob sat up and looked at me as if I was mental.
‘What do you mean she’s not coming? Of course she’s coming, she’s my partner, she’s coming with me.’
I stopped giggling.
‘I said share the house. What did you think I meant? Oh for God’s sake Trish, you didn’t think…’
‘Of course I didn’t!’ I screamed as I jumped away from him, ‘I wouldn’t have you back in a lucky bag! Not in a million years!’
‘Well,’ Bob paused. He nodded and smiled. ‘That’s all right then. Helga is moving in here with me. I’m sure we can sort something out about the smoking.’
He kept smiling as he caught the arm I swung at him.
‘No she fucking isn’t!’ I screamed, ‘Why did you do that, why did you kiss me?’
I wiped and scrubbed at my mouth as if I might have caught a disease.
‘Yes she fucking is,’ he said calmly. ‘And I didn’t do anything. You kis
sed me.’
‘But you wanted it, you joined in!’
‘I thought you needed it.’
‘Well I don’t need any favours from you, you bastard! I don’t think Helga will be very pleased when she hears about this!’
‘I told you, Helga is fine about it. People in Norway do it all the time. Look what’s the problem? Can’t we share the house like civilised people?’
‘Under my roof with your slut girlfriend?’
‘It’s my roof too Trish.’
I had a picture of me sitting in my bedroom in a cloud of smoke while he and Helga went at it in the next room. I’d hear everything, the fighting, the sex. And what would I have? A packet of ten Embassy Regal.
‘I think you’d better leave Bob.’
I kept my voice cold but there wasn’t much dignity in it.
‘The lease runs out on the flat I’m renting at the end of the month and I’m not renewing. I have a right to live here and I’m bringing Helga. Get over it, Trish.’
As I knelt by the fire I curled and uncurled my toes over and over again. I had my head buried in a cushion so I didn’t hear him close the front door on his way out.
Chapter 5
Donovan, O’Hare and Boyle were going to be my salvation. The lawyer was going to tell me that my long lost cousin, Mr Robertson, or rather Mum’s cousin, had indeed made me the chief beneficiary in his will. There would of course be a substantial sum. At least enough to buy my own house back. Tough if Bob hadn’t renewed the lease in his flat, that was his look out. And with Bob homeless Steven would have to come and live with me. On the other hand, somebody leaving me money just seemed too good to be true. Nobody had ever given me anything for free before. I did the lottery and bought charity raffle tickets but I’d never won anything in my puff. I knew better than to get my hopes up.
The lawyers office was nothing like I expected it to be. On the outside of the building everything was on a grand scale from when Glasgow had been the second city of the empire. The facade was all Greek columns and ornate statues of women in togas holding banners. Inside, the reception area was plush and recently done out. In the middle of what was really a reception hall, under a garland of tiny bright bulbs, sat a massive blond wood desk cut in a jigsaw shape. The desk was clear but for an outsize vase of white lilies and a leather bound visitor’s book. The glamorous receptionist, Helen her badge said, snootily insisted that I sign the book.
