by Carmen Reid
So maybe that’s why Andrei wasn’t spelling it out, he just mentioned Sophie here and there, so as not to hide her, but not to shove her down Lana’s throat … so to speak.
How you [Andrei’s email began]? You weren’t v. happy yesterday. Did French class go OK? Did you get your essay mark? I bet it’s not that bad! Here, we get weeks and weeks to write something, but every single person, every single student I know, seems to leave it until the night before. Then total essay meltdown follows, you stay up till 3 a.m. and hand in something utterly rubbish the next day. How anyone is going to get a degree at all, I have no idea!! Spk soon, A xx
Lana read through his note several times. She wondered when he was next going to be in London. It was ages since she’d seen him. The last time, he’d looked different, older. It was as if he’d gone away to uni and then been put into a time machine: gone for a term, but back looking two years older.
She couldn’t decide exactly what it was; maybe the fact that she didn’t see him in school uniform any more, only in his studenty outfit of T-shirt and leather jacket. Plus he’d learned to drive and had this battered little car now.
That seemed so grown up, so way cooler than all the other boys in her class. Lana was at the very top of the school now. She was going to sit her A-levels this summer. ‘This summer’ sounded as if she still had loads of time. In fact it was almost March and the exams began at the end of May.
Clever Andrei had managed to get into Cambridge and Lana had a feeling that no matter how hard she studied, she was never going to be able to join him there … but still, there had to be hope. That was why she was spending a lot of time in her room trying to memorize entire textbooks. But it wasn’t exactly fun.
Although Lana could hear Ed calling her name from downstairs, she began her reply to Andrei, tuning Ed out completely.
She couldn’t believe how much Ed and her mother expected her to help out. They were the ones who’d decided to have those babies, weren’t they? Lana had definitely not been consulted. If she had, she’d have said what a completely ridiculous idea. Her mother was nearly forty, she was swamped by her TV career, what on earth did she need twin babies for?
Anyone could see that Ed was a total novice to the whole thing. He went about checking his watch the whole time, wondering which end of which baby to attend to first.
Lana found the babies an unbelievable inconvenience. And they woke her up in the middle of the night! Didn’t they realize she needed as much sleep as possible? She wanted to do amazingly well in her exams.
She opened a new message and took a long time to think about her reply to Andrei.
‘Hi Andrei,’ Lana began finally.
French was OK. Essay mark was fine. So much boring studying still to do, so many boring exams to sit. I can’t wait for it all to be over. I still don’t know what I’m going to do next, but I think there’s still a bit of time left to decide. Help! If I’m going to go to uni, I know my mum wants me to work for a year so I can save up some money. I like the idea of going to work. As long as she doesn’t drag me into her TV business. Can’t think of anything worse. Funny how just about everyone in my class wants to be famous and now that my mum is actually on TV, I can’t stand the idea! I’m just waiting for her first appearance in one of those celeb magazines. ‘Annie V has bad hair day’ … But will she let me leave home when I’m working? That’s what I want to know. I can’t think of anything more boring than having to stay here and help out with the boring babies. They are still waking up every night and crying the house down. It’s exhausting! I have to go. I can hear my dad shouting in the hall for me. Wonder what chores I am supposed to do for him now? L xx
Lana hit the send button and yelled out a reply to Ed.
But just before she went downstairs, there was one more thing she wanted to do. Logging on to her mother’s website, she clicked on the schedule for the next show. She liked to be prepared for the teasing she got at school. One time, she’d walked in completely unaware to be met by a volley of laughter.
‘Shopping with your teenager’, one of the girls had read from Annie’s preview schedule. ‘How to avoid every mother’s worst nightmare.’
‘Oooh, Lana, did you star in that episode?’ The teasing questions had come thick and fast for the rest of the day.
Lana skimmed through the items for the next programme and couldn’t see any potential minefields ahead: ‘Dressing for work’, ‘Choosing an evening bag’, ‘Best of the high street’ … Oh no … there it was, the really embarrassing item all her classmates would be talking about for the rest of the week: ‘PMT shopping: how to avoid the pitfalls’.
Why did her mum have to do this stuff? Why couldn’t she just have stayed at her job with The Store? Hadn’t that been embarrassing enough – helping other women, including lots of mothers of St Vincent’s pupils, to buy their clothes?
The mothers had no doubt wondered how this glorified shop assistant could afford to send her children to one of the most expensive private schools in London. But then they’d had no idea how hard her mum worked, both at her day job and on her many sidelines.
‘LANA!’ she heard Ed bellow from the foot of the stairs.
‘OK, OK,’ she shouted back. She stood up from her desk and hurried to the door.
‘It’s just a bag of sodding potatoes …’ she huffed to herself. Did it really matter whether she peeled them now or in fifteen minutes?
Chapter Six
Post-bath babies:
Non-bleached, biodegradable nappies (Oko)
Layer of baby moisturizing cream (Green People)
Red organic cotton baby grows (Piccalilly)
Blue and white organic sleep bags (Green Baby)
Total est. cost: £49
At ten to seven there was a flurry of activity at the front door. Annie burst in, unburdened herself of her many bags: laptop, carrier bag crammed full of trial pots, tester items, prototypes, ideas for the show. She kicked off the deathly uncomfortable shoes, massaging her aching Achilles tendons as soon as she came down from the towering heel heights, and rushed first to the kitchen to kiss Lana hello and then upstairs to see the rest of her family.
‘Owen, hi!’ she aimed up the attic stairs at Owen’s door. ‘See you in a minute, got to do baby bedtime first.’
‘OK!’ came the cheery reply. Owen wasn’t worried. He had things of his own to do in his room now, such as: play air guitar; find new hiding place for laundry mountain.
‘My babies!’ Annie exclaimed, swooping into her bedroom, kissing and cuddling everyone in sight.
Ed, Minnie and Micky were all treated to a barrage of affection.
‘I’ve missed you,’ Annie said, scooping the clean, pyjamaed babies out of Ed’s arms and into her own, ‘I’ve missed you, yes I have!’
She kissed the fat cheeks and snuggled her babies against her. The twins were always delighted to see her. That was the very, very best thing about little children; they were always so pleased to see you. Before the babies had arrived, Annie had almost forgotten that undiluted pleasure. Older children had other things on their minds, other worries, other issues, but little children just needed to see Mummy and they were thrilled. Blissed out. Nothing was better.
Annie couldn’t resist nibbling under her babies’ chins to make them giggle.
‘Don’t get them all excited,’ Ed warned, ‘it’s bedtime.’
‘No worries,’ Annie replied, ‘I’m sure I’ll see them many more times before morning.’
‘You never know,’ Ed replied, ever optimistic that maybe tonight was going to be the magical night that this legendary event would happen and the babies would ‘sleep through’.
He’d become obsessed with the idea of ‘sleeping through’. It was like the Holy Grail, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow; he’d begun to think it couldn’t possibly ever happen or really exist, but he dreamed of it, wished for it, felt that if only he could add some magic touch, maybe his dream would come true.
&nb
sp; Annie, wrung out with sleeplessness, had made many dark threats about ‘leaving the babies to cry’ but Ed ignored them all. His children were treated with nothing other than devoted love and respect. If they needed him, if they cried out in the night, he was always, always going to respond. He couldn’t imagine it any other way.
‘Say night night to Daddy,’ Annie told the babies, ‘he’s going to make dinner and I’m going to snuggle up with you.’
Micky and Minnie shared a big cot at the foot of Ed and Annie’s bed. Annie was certain this was part of the problem; they should have their own cots and their own room, which she was sure would give everyone a better night’s sleep. But Ed wouldn’t hear of it. His style of parenting was all about love, warmth, sharing and cuddling together. What a soft-hearted daddy he was turning out to be, Annie thought to herself with a smile. His twins were going to run rings around him. They already did.
With one baby in each of her arms, Annie lay on the double bed and began to sing gently to them. Old, old songs, ones her mother had sung to her and she’d sung to Lana and Owen. When she couldn’t remember the words, she made them up, enjoying just crooning quietly to her twins.
She loved feeling the chubby bodies grow still and heavy in her arms, loved to watch their eyes go dreamy and fix far away in the distance. Now, both babies were putting up a momentary struggle with their heavy eyelids but then their eyes were shut, long lashes curled against their cheeks.
Still singing, Annie put them both down in their cot, patting them gently before she stole out of the room.
In the kitchen, Ed was chopping carrots while Lana peeled potatoes. This was a chore she had begun reluctantly, but now that Ed was talking to her about school, desperate to hear all the latest gossip, she didn’t mind it too much.
‘So tell me about the Easter concert,’ he was saying with interest. ‘What are they planning to do?’
As head of the music department, Ed would usually have been heavily involved with the planning of the Easter concert.
‘Well, I’m only hearing this from Suz,’ Lana began, ‘obviously I’m not involved, but I think it’s bits of The Messiah and stuff from Jesus Christ Superstar.’
‘Jesus Christ Superstar? Good grief!’ Ed exclaimed. ‘Has Pinkie gone stark, staring mad?’
‘Pinkie?’ Lana had to ask.
‘Er … yes. That’s my private name for Mr MacPherson. You don’t need to know that and neither does anyone else at St Vincent’s.’
But Lana was already giggling. ‘That’s good,’ she told Ed, ‘he is very pink. In fact, he’s always pink. He’s either sunburned or incredibly worked up about something.’
‘Jesus Christ Superstar! For St Vincent’s parents?’ Ed was still trying to come to terms with this news. ‘Has he run it past Ketteringham-Smith?’ he asked, invoking the name of the headmaster.
‘How would I know?’ Lana replied.
‘It’s only two weeks away … I should warn Pinkie. It could be hideously embarrassing; he could get the sack.’
‘For Jesus Christ Superstar?’
‘Ketteringham-Smith will be horrified. He’ll want holy music all the way. That’s the St Vincent’s tradition. You can jazz things up a bit at the summer concert or even Christmas, but messing with the Easter ceremonies … he will not like it one tiny little bit. Why didn’t Owen tell me about this? I’ve not heard Owen practising anything from Superstar.’
As he said these words, it occurred to Ed that for some weeks now, he hadn’t heard Owen practising his violin at all. In fact, the only sounds coming from Owen’s room had been loud music blasting from his iPod speakers or that bloody electric guitar Annie had given him for Christmas.
He’d been meaning for ages to ask Owen how his violin was going, but the babies sucked up so much time and so much energy that he’d either been too busy or too exhausted to remember.
‘Owen is in the concert, isn’t he?’ Ed asked Lana.
Lana turned back to her potatoes and gave a shrug, determined not to land her little brother in anything. ‘You’ll have to ask him,’ she said.
Ed went immediately out into the hall and was about to shout for Owen to come down, but he remembered that the babies had just gone to bed, then there was a small brrring at the doorbell followed by the scamper and flurry of fur that was Dave, the small, wiry and extremely noisy family dog, rushing to sentry duty.
‘Shush!’ Ed grabbed hold of the dog and held his muzzle shut to demonstrate. ‘No barking,’ he said, but as Dave was almost deaf, this wasn’t very effective.
Dave issued two or three sharp little barks as Ed let Annie’s mother Fern in the front door.
‘Suppertime?’ Fern asked brightly.
‘Yes,’ Ed confirmed, ‘come in, take a seat. We’re nearly there.’
Fern had been living in the basement flat of Ed and Annie’s house for almost two months now. She’d been diagnosed with the earliest signs of dementia over a year ago now and the illness was progressing erratically. Sometimes she would be totally lucid, capable and normal for days, even weeks, but then if she got stressed or emotional, a cloud of confusion could come over her which was bewildering, not just for Fern but for everyone around her.
She was currently starting a new course of medication to keep the illness at bay and Annie had persuaded her mother to move into the basement flat until they could all be sure the treatment was working for her.
Ed and Annie didn’t mind Fern living with them one little bit; the person who really minded was Fern. Every day, she wanted to have the conversation with Annie about going home and, every day, Annie did her best to avoid it.
Ed walked with Fern towards the kitchen. Although it had only been a few hours since he’d last called in on her, he still asked: ‘How are you doing?’
‘Oh, fine,’ she told him, ‘I’ve spent all afternoon looking for … Lana!’ she interrupted herself. ‘Black and white stripes?’ She was referring to Lana’s top. ‘You just need a mask and a swag bag, then we’ll know you’re a robber.’
‘Thanks, Gran,’ Lana said with a smile. ‘You just need a walking stick and plastic pants, then we’ll know you’re an old lady.’
Ed froze in horror at the cheek of this remark, but Fern exploded into laughter.
Several minutes later, Annie and Owen came downstairs and soon the family’s evening meal was in full swing.
‘Have you heard from Nic?’ Annie asked her mother, referring to her other sister.
‘Nic, yes …’ Her mother paused, forkful of chicken in mid-air. ‘She’s going to come and see us as soon as she can and bring little Tara with her. Today has been a very good day, by the way,’ she added, ‘no white mists … well, not that I’ve noticed anyway; obviously if you go out into the garden and find my underwear hanging all over the bushes, then we’ll know otherwise. I’ve been looking for …’ She tailed off.
For a moment there was a little pause. Everyone was aware that Fern couldn’t remember what she’d been looking for, but they tried not to panic. It didn’t necessarily mean anything scary.
‘Oh, never mind,’ Fern said finally, ‘it’ll come. Tell us all about the TV world today.’
Annie did, not mentioning a word about the threat she was under because everyone around this table so depended on her. Lana and Owen’s school fees; Ed’s unpaid sabbatical; Fern living downstairs in their basement flat – if Annie lost her job, it would affect everyone very badly. Better to just work on and keep it all to herself. Focus on making those two final episodes amazing.
Mouth full of salad, Owen butted in with the information that a jewellery designer had emailed Annie and wanted to be featured on her show.
Before Annie could reply, Fern looked up and blurted out: ‘That’s it! Jewellery! I’ve spent the whole afternoon looking for … for …’ but then she was groping about; whatever word or idea had glimmered in front of her had disappeared again. ‘Oh!’ she cried out in frustration. ‘I can’t bloody well remember.’
As s
he turned her face back down towards her plate, it didn’t escape Ed’s notice that both Annie and her mother had tears in their eyes.
‘Owen?’ Ed remembered, desperate to change the subject. ‘How’s the violin? What’s your part in the Easter concert?’
‘Uh oh,’ came Owen’s reply. Desperate to change the subject himself now, he threw in: ‘And when are you and Mum getting married?’
‘Uh oh …’ came Annie’s response.
Chapter Seven
Annie ready for bed:
Saggy PJ bottoms (La Senza)
Saggy white vest (M&S)
Pink maribou-trimmed mules (Agent Provocateur)
Frownies (Boots)
Crème de la Mer night cream (eBay)
Hand cream and white cotton gloves (Barielle)
Total est. cost: £270
‘Oh no … you can’t really be thinking … ?’
As Annie tiptoed into the dimly lit bedroom, Ed glanced over at her from his side of the bed. He frowned, and then, spotting the white gloves she was wearing to ‘turbo-charge her hand cream’ (apparently), he began to grin.
‘Oh no,’ he whispered, so as not to wake the twins asleep at the end of the bed, ‘not a mime show …’
‘For my hard-working hands,’ she informed him, also in whispers. The babies were like small unexploded bombs in the room; they could go off at any moment.
As Annie walked round the bed, so she could get in on her side, Ed looked at her face, greased with a layer of cream and sporting those silly plastic strips that she taped to her forehead every night, supposedly to iron out her frown-lines. At least she’d stopped having her face injected with botulism … well, as far as he knew. He didn’t put it past her to sneak off every once in a while and have little tweaks made here and there.
