The living-room was long and narrow with an arch in the centre marking what had been the dividing wall between two smaller rooms. The window was open at the top, but the air still smelled slightly used, with a trace of scent, and the far end was obviously where he’d been sitting with the Chinese girl, for there was a table strewn with books and another with a word-processor on it.
‘My place,’ he said, picking up a cushion off the sofa and throwing it down again. ‘Do you want a drink?’
‘No, thanks.’
‘Shall we go upstairs, then? We don’t want to frighten the horses.’
I was shocked by his directness. Even though there wasn’t the slightest question about why I was there, I had somehow expected a few preliminaries, a bit of token coaxing and wooing. Instead of which my bluff was being well and truly called.
‘Okay.’
Like an obedient, nervous child I followed him, shivering, up the stairs.
His bedroom was at the back of the house, quite large and with an unfinished feel. There was a nice pine chest of drawers with a spotted mirror on top, and an absolutely ghastly old wardrobe like the Cabinet of Dr Kaligari. The bed was thoroughly slept-in, the duvet slewed and the pillowcases in need of changing. There was no bedside table. A clip-on reading light was attached to the bedhead, and a slithering pile of books and magazines was on the floor. There were clothes and shoes everywhere, and the blind had been pulled up lopsidedly. I was suddenly overcome with a paralysing attack of shyness. I was old, out of practice, out of condition – what was I doing here?
‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said cheerfully.
‘That’s all right.’
‘Let’s have a look at you,’ he went on in a tone of lively curiosity, laying hands on me. ‘Let’s be having you.’
He had me, yes. Susan would have been proud of me. We made the beast with two backs, and it was a wild beast – a munching, squelching, writhing, growling monster, rough and greedy and sweaty, a slavering predator that simply pounced on my shyness and consumed it. My spare-tyre-and-cellulite fears were not just unfounded, they were irrelevant. I scarcely recognized myself.
‘Awesome,’ said Patrick afterwards. ‘Wouldn’t you say?’
He heaved a huge shuddering sigh that turned into a cough, and felt beside the bed for cigarettes and lighter. I was lying with my shoulder in his armpit and my chin on his chest but he managed the lighting-up process with considerable dexterity, and exhaled a torrent of smoke over my head.
‘Glad you came?’ he asked.
‘Yes.’
‘I’m glad you did, too – I’m bloody ecstatic!’ He gave me a squeeze. ‘ I knew, you know.’
‘What?’ I was monosyllabic with pleasure and shock.
‘From the moment I clapped eyes on you in your back garden I knew you’d be a sensational lay.’
I could hardly believe he was talking about me, Laura Lewis, mother, grandmother and stalwart of the CAB. A sensational lay! And yet at the same time it was dawning on me with slow, warm certainty, that I had been … I really had.
He went on: ‘ You’ve got just the sort of figure I like. Generous, earthy—’
‘Fat?’ I suggested from an ingrained habit of self-deprecation.
‘On the fattish side,’ he conceded kindly. ‘Let me have women about me who are fat …’ He clutched a handful of the flesh on my back. ‘Mmm.’
‘You’re carrying a few extra pounds yourself,’ I reminded him.
‘More than a few. A couple of stone. That’s why I don’t want some catwalk skeleton rattling around in my bed – I might do her a mischief.’
He stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette and turned to face me.
‘Fancy the other half?’
As he came between me and the light from the window I told myself that I’d be stiff in the morning.
That was it. After an hour at his house I left. We made no arrangements beyond agreeing that we’d see each other again. I kept telling myself that I was ‘having an affair’, trying to hammer home the enormity of what had happened, but it didn’t work. Somehow what I – we – had done that afternoon was both more and less than an affair. An affair was trysts and assignations and plans and elaborate deception … an affair was something I had always felt that I could never be bothered to have. I didn’t have the energy for all that duplicity, nor the taste for a double life.
Patrick and I had made not love, but the beast. And Glyn and I did not make love, we affirmed it. We endorsed each other, and our partnership, before lying back to back, looking in our separate directions …
Back at Alderswick Avenue Nathan was sitting outside in his van. immediately behind Cy’s red VW Scirocco. Beyond that was the rehabilitated purple Mini. The front door of the house was open and there seemed to be a lot of people about, for which I was glad. Cy, about to leave, was standing in the hall talking to Becca. Amos and Sinead were racketing about somewhere in the background. Glyn was on the phone in the office. Verity was with Josh in the sitting-room.
‘Laura!’ said Cy.
‘I wonder—’ began Becca.
‘Grannee!’ squealed Sinead.
Glyn put the phone down but it rang again at once. I gave them all a general wave and a smile and ran up the stairs to change.
I bore the telltale marks of treachery. My new suit smelled of cigarette smoke. All over my breasts was a fine veil of red, like a heatrash, caused by the insistent friction of the hairs on Patrick’s chest. I had a love-bite, of all things, on my shoulder, and the sticky residue of Patrick’s semen in my underwear. I changed as quickly as I could, hung up the suit, pushed the offending items to the bottom of the laundry basket, sprayed myself with some eau de toilette and went back downstairs.
Nobody made the slightest comment on my transformation they just carried on with what they had been going to say before, except that Becca was now on the phone and Glyn had taken her place in the hall, with Sinead in his arms.
‘Grannee!’ She leaned out and I took her.
‘Laura!’ said Cy again. He sniffed. ‘God, you smell wonderful.’
‘Doesn’t she,’ agreed Glyn.
‘Reminds me of your lovely party,’ said Cy. ‘Why is women’s perfume so evocative? Wrecks me every time.’
‘It’s nothing special,’ I said. ‘ I got it in Boots.’
‘I bought her something extravagant,’ explained Glyn, ‘but she’s too mean to wear it.’
It amused him to characterize me as bit of a puritan. I leaned back slightly to glance out of the door. ‘Does Becca know Nathan’s here?’
‘He brought her over,’ said Glyn. ‘ I think you’ll find she wants us to have the kids tonight.’
‘We’re sleeping here,’ announced Sinead.
‘Fine.’
Glyn asked, ‘Cy, are you staying for supper? Verity’s made one of her stand-up soups.’
‘I don’t know, am I?’ Cy addressed this to me.
‘Looks like it,’ I said.
I realized I didn’t need a subterfuge. The forest of thorns just naturally grew up around me the minute I got back.
While Glyn and Cy went to the kitchen for drink, I carried Sinead into the sitting-room. There was some strange music playing, an eerie, primitive wailing underscored with the ticker-tacker of an electronic tom-tom.
‘Hi, Mum,’ said Verity. ‘All right?’
‘Yes thanks,’ I replied brightly, putting Sinead down. ‘Dad said you made soup – thanks, love, I appreciate it.’
‘My pleasure, I like making soup.’ She nodded in the direction of Josh. ‘He’s better.’
Josh was fully dressed and sitting with Amos on the sofa playing Donkey Kong on a Gameboy. His duvet and pillows were still in place and carried the tightly creased indentation of his ill self – it reminded me of Patrick’s rumpled bedroom.
‘Are you really?’ I asked, putting the back of my hand against his cheek, which felt cool and – unnervingly – stubbly.
‘Get off. Yes.’ He
brushed me away.
‘Good.’ I kissed Amos. ‘Are you two going to stay the night here?’
‘Don’t ask me.’
‘Yes!’ cried Sinead.
‘I think Mummy’s going out, so you probably will be.’
‘I hate soup,’ said Amos.
Josh, his eyes still on Donkey Kong, dug him with his elbow. ‘Tough titty. Splattered him!’
‘You can have chips,’ suggested Verity.
‘Okay.’
I left the room and crossed the hall to close the front door. Becca was now down in the road, bending over to talk to Nathan through the van’s passenger window. She was wearing a denim mini-skirt and her legs in black tights looked endless beneath the jaunty tilt of her hips. A couple of boys in school blazers ogled the view and went through a pantomime of staggering and swooning before a blast on the horn from the furious Nathan sent them packing. Becca didn’t move.
‘Vino?’ called Glyn from the kitchen.
‘Thanks.’ I looked in again on the sitting-room. Verity was busy putting lots of minute stringy plaits in Sinead’s hair. Amos was holding the Gameboy and Josh had taken his right sock off and was examining the sole of his foot with chimp-like thoroughness.
‘I scored a hit with Mr Collins,’ I said. ‘ Did Dad tell you?’
‘He mentioned it. What did you do?’
Suddenly I couldn’t remember. I only knew that I had notched up some sort of victory. ‘Nothing much. Anyway, he thinks you’re a potential starred A.’
‘I’m glad he admits it,’ agreed Josh, taking off the other sock and repeating the performance.
‘Do you have to do that in here?’
‘No, I’ll do it in the kitchen if you like. While we’re eating Ver’s mess of pottage.’
‘Don’t you dare,’ said Verity.
‘All the same, I think you probably ought to be a bit more circumspect in your choice of subject matter,’ I said. ‘It would be a pity if you missed out on a good mark because of this insane urge to shock people.’
He didn’t answer, but as I crossed the hall I heard him say to Verity, ‘I reckon Collins fancies her.’
Cy and Glyn were sitting at the table. There was a delicious vegetable smell. Cy picked up my glass of wine and handed it to me. ‘ You look very pleased with yourself.’
The front door slammed mightily. I had the feeling my self-satisfaction was going to be short-lived.
Becca came in. ‘Hi, Bex,’ said Glyn, ‘do you and Nathan fancy a drink?’
‘He’s gone, but I don’t mind.’
Cy looked her up and down. ‘ Becca, my pretty, are you going to come and show up the pop tartlets at our riverboat party?’
‘I may well do.’ Becca sipped her wine, one hand on her hip.
‘I thought you were going out with Nathan this evening.’ I looked at her.
‘I was, but I’m not any more.’
‘Going to join us at the groaning board then?’ said Cy, patting the chair next to him invitingly.
‘No, I won’t, thanks, I have to go back and get ready to drive into London in’ – she looked at her watch – ‘ one hour.’
‘So where are you off to, Bex?’ asked Glyn.
‘I’m going to Toffs with Griggs.’
At the same time as Cy and Glyn exchanged a glance of laddish delight, I realized that Patrick Lynch wouldn’t even have understood the remark. Becca turned to me.
‘Is it okay then if the kids stay?’ she asked, as if she’d already mentioned it.
‘Of course.’
‘I’ll pick them up in the morning.’
‘Don’t be too late, I’m at the Bureau at nine-thirty.’
‘Don’t worry.’ She drained her glass and put it on the table. Cy grabbed her hand and kissed it. She retrieved it and waggled her fingers at Glyn and me. ‘I’ll go and say goodnight to them.’
Glyn topped us up, shaking his head admiringly. ‘That was Griggs on the phone just now. Poor old Nathan.’
We heard the front door close behind Becca. ‘I liked Nathan,’ said. ‘It’s a pity if she’s treated him badly.’
‘He’ll survive. He’s no Sir Galahad himself,’ observed Glyn. ‘Remember when he put her out of the van on the A1?’
‘She could do a lot worse than be Griggs’s main squeeze,’ said Cy to me. ‘If that band haven’t charted a month from now I’ll eat crow. They’re going to be huge.’
Glyn got up and lifted the lid on the saucepan. ‘I’m absolutely starving. Do we have to wait for Verity to dish this stuff up or can we use our initiative?’
Verity dished up, having first made Amos chips – actually made them, by cutting up and deep-frying potatoes, not oven-cooking them from frozen as I would have done. Glyn and Cy got slightly drunk. Josh, grumpy and disdainful, went up to the attic to smoke and receive friends. Verity departed for the night-shelter. I oversaw the children’s bathtime and read Dr Seuss only to have all my good work undone again by Cy who stirred them up with his repertoire of funny walks. While Glyn put them to bed, Cy became maudlin.
‘They’re terrific kids.’
‘They have their moments,’ I said briskly, keeping a tight rein on things.
‘No, they are. You don’t know how much I envy you and Glyn your family life. And don’t think I don’t know how much commitment it takes – you make it look easy, but I know different.’
He would never know how different … I could think of nothing to say, but Cy had more than enough for two.
‘Do you know you’re the only couple I know who’ve made twenty-five years? Correction, you’re the only couple I know who’ve made ten—’
‘I’m sure that’s not true.’
‘It is, I’m telling you!’
‘Perhaps,’ I suggested, ‘we’re lazy.’
‘Uh-uh.’ He shook his head. ‘You’re too modest.’
This conversation was completely surreal. All I could do was let it happen. I must say I was relieved when Glyn said Cy shouldn’t be driving and saw him to the spare room. And equally relieved when we went upstairs to find Sinead snuggled like a dormouse beneath our duvet.
‘Don’t disturb her,’ I said, ‘she looks so cosy.’
Glyn turned on the TV with the sound down. They were showing a thoughtful Australian film about growing up in the boondocks.
‘Just the ticket.’ He was mildly insomniac, always had been, it was the reason our bedroom was like an airport lounge, full of ways to while away the night. He pulled off his shoes and lay down fully clothed on the bed next to Sinead, his hands linked behind his head, while I went to the bathroom. I was careful to put on a nightshirt with sleeves that hid my badges of shame.
I got into bed, hoisted Sinead up a bit so she wouldn’t be suffocated, and picked up my book. On the TV screen the dusty grey and green of the bush gave way to a scorching red wilderness as the heroine ran away from her brutish stepfather.
‘It’s funny this actress hasn’t done anything worth mentioning since,’ said Glyn. ‘She’s good, and she’s gorgeous, but either she’s abnormally fussy or she never got the offers.’ I knew this was no idle observation but a matter of consuming interest to him – he was fascinated by what got people work, the mechanics of success.
‘You say that,’ I answered, ‘but she’s probably toiling away in some experimental theatre group in Prague, blissfully starving for her artistic integrity.’
Glyn shook his head. ‘Too pretty. But if that is what she’s doing it’s a criminal waste.’ I felt him look at me. ‘ You’re very pretty tonight as well, Laura-lou.’
‘Oh, come on,’ I said. ‘ Thanks, but really.’
I went back to my book, but I knew he was still looking. He reached across Sinead and laid his hand on my arm – a thoughtful, prolonged touch as if he were checking my temperature. It seemed incredible that he couldn’t feel the emotional turbulence inside.
In the end he removed his hand and went on watching the film. I closed the book and snuggled down
with my granddaughter, breathing in the soft smell of her hair.
The next morning Sinead woke us up at a quarter to six having heard Verity return from the night-shelter at five-thirty. Josh announced his intention of returning to college, and Glyn said he could have a lift since it would feel like almost lunchtime by then. I had the children ready, dressed, saucered and blown for eight forty-five.
Becca arrived an hour later. A good time had clearly been had by all because she was exhausted, unmade-up and in the foulest possible mood. I got no credit whatever for her clean, smiling, well-breakfasted offspring, indeed I was made to feel somehow to blame for her hangover and the fact that I had to go out and do a job of work, leaving her to cope.
‘Where’s Amos’s belt?’ she asked, homing in unerringly on the one thing I’d overlooked.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t know. Don’t worry, it’ll come to light and you can pick it up next time.’
‘I’d rather find it now if you don’t mind,’ she said, the east wind in her voice. Amos sat down on the stairs with a resigned air while his sister, seeing a window of opportunity, went upstairs to pester Verity.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘ I really do have to go. I’m late already.’
She was now steaming round the sitting-room, lifting and dropping cushions and moving newspapers aside with her foot. Her voice was brittle with irritation. ‘Carry on. Go! No need to hang about here. Amos, don’t just sit there, come and help me look.’
My hand was reaching for the front door as Glyn returned, bearing the croissants and freshly ground coffee intended to revive Cy.
‘You off?’ he asked. ‘Bex! Come and have a coffee and tell me how my valuable property seemed to you – hallo, hotshot, fancy a buttered bun?’
I don’t think they even noticed that I’d gone. But I wasn’t bitter. It was a comfort, in a way, to know they didn’t need me. It gave me the permission to see Patrick again. The clutch pedal in the car found out my creaky hip joint, and I reminded myself that I was a terrific lay. To prove it I crashed a red light.
Susan called me at the Bureau, something she did fairly frequently while always claiming never to do it at all, on principle.
Life After Lunch Page 15
