by Anna Maxted
I dismiss this episode from my mind and attempt to answer her question. Why did I ask Jasper to stay? ‘I felt lonely after you’d swanned off to your boat party,’ I say sulkily. ‘And it was rainy and I was by myself in an empty flat.’
Lizzy shakes her curls and says, ‘But that’s my favourite thing! Being all cosy in a warm flat, watching the rain! And it was your first night in your own home. Weren’t you excited?’
I sigh. Then I say in a grumpy voice, ‘Yes, but I saw a huge spider. And I felt sorry for him. Jasper, I mean.’
Lizzy purses her lips. ‘Why?’ she says.
I feel hot and cross. I snap, ‘Because Louisa turfed him out!’
Lizzy retorts, ‘But she gave him notice. Couldn’t he find his own flat?’
I growl, ‘No.’
‘Oh,’ says Lizzy. ‘Why not?’
I shrug and say, ‘I think he’s short of cash.’
Lizzy isn’t convinced. She says, ‘Well, he’s lucky that he had you to fall back on. You’re very kind, Helen, but I do think it’s your right to tell Jasper to go if you’ve changed your mind about having him.’
Something Lizzy has just said chafes at my composure. I say huffily, ‘We’re fond of each other. And I feel sorry for him because I know what it’s like to be living with someone you’ve been involved with and for it to go sour.’ I say.
Lizzy emits a neat, ladylike snort and replies, ‘Well, Helen, you certainly know now!’ I tut and ignore her.
Lizzy is in a bad mood because she’s twenty-eight tomorrow. Normally this wouldn’t be an issue but she has booked a private room in a restaurant to celebrate with friends and yesterday afternoon Tina e-mailed her to say she would be unable to attend. She didn’t give a reason. This shocked Lizzy and she rang Tina at home in the evening to ask why. Adrian answered. I can only assume that Lizzy charmed the bastard because he and Tina are now attending.
But Lizzy remains upset. She counts Tina as one of her ten closest pals and has made infinite excuses for the fact that recently she’s been as friendly as a traffic warden with gout. According to Lizzy, Tina has been ‘incredibly pressurised’ because the deputy fashion editor has landed a job at Cosmopolitan and hasn’t yet been replaced so Tina is ‘snowed under with work’. Also, Tina is ‘mad about Adrian’ but ‘they both work such long hours’ and so ‘Tina wants to spend every precious minute with him.’
It has been easy for Lizzy to believe her own hype as she is one of those repulsively popular people who isn’t possessive of her friends (they’re two a penny and always ringing her). But while she’s a liberal pal she is a birthday fascist. This is because Lizzy’s family have always made a huge fuss of birthdays – hired halls, magicians, clown cakes, balloon sculptures, fancy dress, ribboned presents, goody bags stuffed with sweets (I didn’t get any of that when I turned twenty-six) – and Lizzy continues to regard birthdays as sacrosanct. So Tina’s attempt to wriggle out of Lizzy’s birthday dinner is an unpardonable sin. And that Tina’s now been forced into attending doesn’t erase the snub. I open my mouth to say ‘How many people have you invited?’ when Lizzy opens her mouth and says, ‘Helen, do you mind awfully if I don’t invite Jasper?’
I am astonished. Lizzy blushes and adds hurriedly, ‘It’s just that I don’t think he’ll enjoy it at all. Oh I do hope you’re not offended, it’s just that—’
I overcome my surprise and say, ‘Liz, honestly, it’s fine. In fact he can’t make it, he’s going out with the guys from his college cricket team tomorrow night. So don’t worry.’ Even as these words drop glibly from my lips, a thousand more rough and tumble inside my head. Do I believe my ears? So Jasper is blackballed but the wife-beater is cordially invited! This is heresy! It’s tantamount to God telling Adam that Eve isn’t invited to his Garden party but the Snake is.
I smile thinly and try not to look offended. I don’t want Jasper to come to Lizzy’s – he’d only bitch about the food and the guests and the music and the venue – but Lizzy not wanting him to come is another thing entirely. It’s my right to discriminate against Jasper as he’s my ex. But Lizzy has no past-ownership entitlement to Jasper’s reputation and so I am forced to declare her out of order. (In my head, of course, I wouldn’t dream of saying so to her face.)
‘I’ve invited Luke, though,’ says Lizzy, ‘I know you adore him, and he’s such a sweetie.’
I am astonished for the second time in two minutes. ‘Oh!’ I say. I’m not sure if I am pleased (at least Luke won’t talk about karmic astrology all evening) or annoyed (Lizzy’s got a billion friends, why is she appropriating mine?). I tell Lizzy that’s fine, but if she’ll excuse me I’ve got to make a phone call. Then I stalk back to the office and sulk. My mood doesn’t improve, even when I get home and see that Jasper has made himself a cheese and tomato sandwich in the kitchen and eaten it in the lounge – the cutlery drawer is open, a crumb-encrusted plate is abandoned on the table, a bread knife is lying by the sink, a spider-resembling tomato top has been dropped on the floor, and the remains of a hunk of Cheddar (unwrapped) is turning stale on the side.
‘He’s got a nerve!’ I say to Fatboy, who is biting his claws and pays no attention. I wonder if Jasper has left me a note to say where he is. After a three-second search in which I comb the flat, I discover he hasn’t. I wash up the plate and knife, slam shut the drawer, pick up the tomato top and the cracking Cheddar, and hurl them in the bin, all the while muttering under my breath about slothful loutish flatmates who hurl their weight around like Henry VIII, expect other people to tidy up their filthy mess, and leave their Earl Grey teabags in the stainless steel sink and stain it. I pound around for forty minutes fussing and dusting, become bored, and call Tina.
I know I shouldn’t. The last time I rang her and enquired after her health she told me coldly that she knew I was trying to break up her relationship and furthermore she knew it was because I was jealous of her and Adrian’s ‘amazing love’ for each other, and I didn’t understand it. I – according to Tina – am eaten up with bitterness because the men I date are all wankers who couldn’t give a shit about me (only she didn’t put it quite so nicely).
Hurt though I was, I reminded myself she’d been hypnotised by the evil wizard and merely said, ‘Damn right I want to break up your relationship! I’d love to get you away from Adrian. He’s a—’ but she put the phone down on me. She’s ignored me ever since and the self-help books are mouldering away on my bedroom floor. I hate it, but I’m scared to call in case I get her into trouble. But I think, I can pretend I’m ringing to see what she’s buying Lizzy for her birthday. Just this once won’t hurt. Tina’s mobile isn’t working so I call her home number. ‘Hello?’ she whispers.
‘Tina?’ I say nervously. ‘It’s me, Helen. Do you know your mobile’s not working?’
Tina coughs, and says, ‘I don’t have one any more.’ As Tina is – or used to be – famed for the scale of her mobile phone bills (approx £300 per month) I am taken aback.
‘But,’ I stutter, ‘how can you live!’
Tina coughs again. She seems to have a sore throat. ‘They’re bad for you,’ she says flatly, ‘they give you brain cancer.’
I reply, ‘But isn’t it essential for your job?’ Tina says nothing. I feel a stab of rage and I say heatedly, ‘It’s him, isn’t it? He’s trying to take you away from us! Why—’
She interrupts me. Her tone is fierce: ‘No he’s not! It’s only because he cares about me, and you can’t deal with that! Why won’t you stop interfering and leave me alone! Please! He’ll be here soon, he’s got a key, and if he catches me, he’ll press one-four-seven-one and if he’ll want to know who I spoke to and for how long and what we said and—’ her voice cracks.
I grimace and try to understand. I tell her I’m her friend and I want the best for her and she’s got to trust me. I tell her (and here I keep my fingers crossed) I respect her and Adrian’s relationship but a relationship should make you happy and I don’t think she’s that happy. I ask her if h
e’s hit her recently and she tells me he hasn’t hit her in a long time. But something in the way she says it alerts me and I ask if he’s done anything that he wouldn’t do if say, I was in the room.
Which is when I find out that last night, after Lizzy’s phone call, Adrian took a plastic spatula from Tina’s kitchen drawer, a plastic M & S bag from under the sink, locked Tina in her flat (saying he might call at any time so if she rang anyone he’d know), sauntered down the road to the park, shovelled three fresh dog shits into the M & S bag, returned to the flat, donned a pair of yellow rubber gloves, then smeared dog shit all over Tina’s face and into her mouth, while hissing, ‘That’s what you are.’
Apart from that, he’s been a real dear.
Chapter 40
I WAS RAISED to believe that good vanquishes evil. Cinderella’s ugly sisters, Cruella de Vil, the sneering shop assistants in Pretty Woman – they all got their comeuppance for no better reason than because they deserved it. So when I hear about Adrian’s latest atrocity I expect justice. I want a storybook hero to sweep to the rescue and save the goodie and punish the baddie. Yet, when I beg Tina to let me call the police, she hesitates then says ‘No’. She says real life doesn’t work like that. I don’t know what Adrian is like, he’s smarter than the law. When she says this, I feel helpless and weak and sick to the stomach. I am robbed of speech and two decades of complacency.
I don’t sleep well on Thursday night and wake up on Friday morning feeling groggy. I drag myself to work and try to wake up. But I can’t. I drink two double espressos which make my body jangle but have no effect whatsoever on my dopiness. I see Tina slink into the office, head bowed. My heart lurches, and I decide she doesn’t need to avoid eye contact because today I am going to ignore her. I know it’s childish of me, but I’m so angry and frustrated that if I spoke to her I’d find it hard not to shake her. Listen to me – I’m as bad as Adrian. I force a smile as Lizzy bounds up and tinkles, ‘Are you looking forward to tonight? What are you going to wear?’
My smile dissipates and I say, ‘Er, this.’
Lizzy looks at my baggy, faded grey top and frowns. ‘You can’t wear that for my birthday! It’s my birthday!’
Grow up, I want to say but don’t. ‘Well I haven’t got anything else,’ I growl. Lizzy peers under my desk. ‘Oi!’ I squeak.
‘I wanted to see what shoes you were wearing,’ she explains, ‘and I have to say, those stack-heeled boots aren’t my favourite.’ To be frank, my stack-heeled boots aren’t anyone’s favourite. A while back, when Tina was still herself, she took one glance and said they looked like calipers. But I like them. ‘I know!’ sings Lizzy. ‘I’ll ask Tina to lend you something fabulous from the fashion cupboard. I’m sure she will when she—, I’m sure she will.’
Lizzy tootles off, consults with Tina and, four minutes later, reappears at my desk brandishing a pair of strappy black stiletto sandals and a yellow wraparound top with mauve lace edging. ‘Ay carumba,’ I say crossly.
‘Don’t be silly!’ snaps Lizzy. ‘These will look gorgeous with your black trousers.’
I reply, ‘Yes, but what about with me in them?’
Lizzy ignores my grumblings and forces me to try everything on. I stare dourly at my reflection in the Ladies mirror while Lizzy skips around me like a demented pixie, pulling and tugging and brushing at the top. Then she says, ‘Helen, you look divine! Wait there!’
She slips out of the door, and two seconds later is back, with Tina. ‘What do you think?’ she crows, flinging her arms wide like a cabaret singer.
‘Great,’ says Tina, smiling wanly and addressing the words to my left ear.
‘Good!’ says Lizzy. ‘That’s that then.’ She allows me to put on my grey top for the remainder of the day but confiscates my boots ‘because I don’t trust you’. She dances out of the door, leaving Tina and me alone.
I feel as awkward as when Michelle’s grandmother set me up on a blind date with her dog-walker – who was Russian (‘from Rrrrussia weez love!’ he threatened on the phone) and had a mullet. ‘Hello,’ I say.
Tina nibbles at a fingernail and blurts, ‘Helen, please don’t be off with me, or Adrian tonight, he’ll get suspicious and, and—’
Instantly I feel cruel and ashamed, so I touch her upper arm, trace my finger down it gently, and squeeze her hand. Her eyes fill with tears and she turns and walks out.
As I don’t wish to disappoint Lizzy – and because when she leaves the office I search frenziedly around her desk for my calipers but can’t find them – I walk into the restaurant bang on seven thirty wearing my black trousers, carnival top and strappy sandals. And the first person I see is Tom. He is standing in the far corner of the room, and is in conversation with Brian, who is wearing stonewashed dungarees. I’m so astonished (not at the stonewashed dungarees, they complement the green dayglo T-shirt perfectly) I double take and nearly drop Lizzy’s present on the floor. The birthday girl skips over. ‘Surprise!’ she squeaks in my ear.
My face feels hot and red. ‘Oh my God, you maniac! Keep it down!’ I mutter, trying to keep the inane grin on my face under control.
Lizzy clamps a hand over her mouth to muffle a loud giggle. Luke appears at my side, digs an elbow into my ribs and winks.
‘That was subtle,’ I say.
‘Tom came with Luke, so don’t blame me!’ exclaims Lizzy happily.
Luke chirrups, ‘We went to loads of trouble so don’t bugger it up this time.’
I stare at my strappy sandals and murmur delightedly, ‘You meddling kids!’
Luke takes this as a sign of approval and cries, ‘I’ll go and get him, shall I?’
He is only prevented from doing so when I grab his shirt, drag him backwards by the scruff, and hiss ‘No!’ But then Tom walks across the room, gazes at me for a second, and says boldly, ‘Hello, you.’ And I know he’s being bold because when he says it he turns pink and his voice trembles slightly. I open my mouth and realise it’s as dry as stale toast, so my ‘hello, Tom,’ emerges as a faint croak.
Tom blushes again – not least because Luke and Lizzy are staring at us like Muppets – and starts to say ‘I, uh, you look ni—’ when he is interrupted.
Luke nudges him in the back and exclaims, ‘Aren’t you gonna kiss her then?’
I freeze as the godawful words boi-oi-oing around our ears like a boomerang at a funeral. Lizzy – who I conclude didn’t quite understand what she was dealing with when she went into cahoots with Luke – looks aghast. Tom’s horrified expression cracks and he roars ‘Arrrrrgh!’ and pretends to throttle Luke.
‘Come away now!’ orders Lizzy sharply, like a nanny who is watching the rhinos with a five-year-old when they start rutting.
Tom and I are left to face each other. My hands dangle awkwardly by my sides and I don’t know what to do with them. The rabbit foot is thumping away crazily in my chest, and I look at his face and all I can think of to say is ‘How’ve you been?’
Tom tilts his head and nods and mutters, ‘Okay thanks, and you?’
I nod too and say, ‘Fine, thanks. Just fine.’ Just fine! Who do I think I am? Dolly Parton? I bite my lip and wince and because I am starting to panic, blurt, ‘Luke says funny things, doesn’t he?’
Tom nods miserably and says, ‘Yeah.’
Suddenly he looks as if he might cry and my insides squeeze and I take a deep breath and I say, ‘But sometimes he says things I think but don’t dare say.’
I say this, can’t believe I’ve said it, stare at the floor and screw up my face, thinking, fool, fool! prat! fool! When I dare to look at Tom again, he’s looking at me like he’s starving and I’m a large kebab, and we step forward at the same moment and he gently holds my face to his and we kiss. We kiss as soft and warm as velvet on velvet and I close my eyes and feel choked with joy and when I open them for a quick peek his eyes are shut, so I glance around the room to see if anyone has seen us – twenty people are ogling – so I close them again and sink deeper into the kiss.
‘So what,’ whispers Tom and holds me tighter, and I hug him back hard, and I gaze into his blue eyes and feel a headrush and it seems madness that we’ve been apart – mad, stupid – and I think ‘this must not happen again’ and the warmth hits me like sunshine after rain. I love you.
It’s not like anything else, ever. Everything that has gone before Tom is all very nice and fine but nothing. Tom is it. I look at him and I think of that old-fashioned phrase ‘I love you with all my heart’ – if I recall, it’s what the handsome prince says to the flaxen-haired princess – and that is what I feel. He kisses my face, my hair, and says into it, ‘Sorry for being a git.’
I rear back so fast I nearly knock out his teeth on my skull. ‘You’re sorry!’ I squeak. ‘Don’t be! You were right! Everything you said. I’m sorry.’
Tom shakes his head. Then he smiles. ‘When you fell into the pub that time with Lizzy, even though, what she said’ – at this point I nod hastily to encourage him to gloss over it – ‘I wanted to run after you and kiss you to death.’
I glow and say, ‘Did you!’
He nods and kicks at the floor, like a small child, and says gruffly, ‘It was shit without you. I hated it.’
I can barely believe it’s Tom saying these things – not some balding, smelly-breathed goon, the sort that usually trap me in bars – but Tom. Tom who I lust after. Tom who tells it like it is. Tom who fancies me, Helen, even if I do have flat hair and drive a Toyota. Oh God, please let it be real.
Dare I say it, I think Tom is thinking along similar lines, because we sit next to each other during dinner and he keeps beaming at me, and kissing me, and squeezing my hand, and he barely eats a thing. And, in an unprecedented scene, neither do I. We just talk.
Tom wants to know everything, like what I did for Christmas, and did I think of him at all, and how my job is, and how Laetitia is treating me right now (like a serf), and how Fatboy is doing (so spoilt that if I stroke him much more a genie will emerge from his arse), and Nana and my mother and how are things with me and her – although I don’t have to tell him – and how I found my flat and how I did it up and did I miss him and how long it took and what I chose and how I feel and if I’ve seen Marcus and he keeps gazing at me as if I’m some unimaginable beauty and I want to know everything about what he’s been doing, if Celine is still working at Megavet (no, she was sacked for gross incompetence after dropping a hamster then treading on it), if his sister is okay (great: only yesterday she said to her boss Mr Higgenbotham ‘The thing with your name is, you don’t have to pronounce it Higgenbottom – you can get over that by pronouncing it Higgenbo-tham!’), if he’s still doing his boxing (sort of, if you count watching Rocky I, II, and III), how his family is (fine: his stepdad had a smallish win on the pools last week and is taking Tom’s mum to the Lake District), and if he’s got over his fear of painting (nice of me to remember), and if he’s had sex with anyone since me (the cheek, and can he ask me the same question?), and has he read Déjà Dead yet (yes, he has – it’s as juicily gruesome as a Pot Noodle), and can we go to the heath extension again in the Honda and eat bagels?
