by Rosie Fiore
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Sally had called a week or so before and asked Esther and Lucie to accompany her to an event. ‘I’ve gone along to the local amateur dramatic group a few times,’ she told Esther. ‘Not to be in a play or anything.’ She gave a self-conscious giggle. ‘I just thought I could… you know… help backstage, or work in the box office or something. But the people are ever such a giggle, and they’re having a quiz night to raise some funds. Might you come along and be on my table? I’m happy to pay, but it should be a jolly occasion.’
Esther said she wouldn’t hear of Sally paying and they would love to come. She was fairly sure it would be anything but a jolly occasion, but she felt guilty that she hadn’t made more of an effort to see Sally. When she tentatively suggested the arrangement to Lucie, her daughter rolled her eyes. ‘It sounds awful, Mum,’ she said. ‘Just awful. A quiz night? In a church hall?’
‘There’s a fish-and-chip supper.’ Esther gave a small smile. The withering look Lucie returned made her burst out laughing. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘It’s Sally. She’s trying to build new friendships. Let’s go and support her. It’s one night out of our lives.’
Lucie was forced to agree. It was she, after all, who had pushed Esther to maintain the friendship in the first place.
On the Sunday afternoon they went round to Sally’s place to pick her up and drove to the church where the amateur dramatic group met, which was some distance away. Sally kept up an excited chatter, explaining how she took two buses to get there on the evenings she went along to the meetings, and how, once or twice, she had been given a lift home by one of the nice ladies.
When they got there, Esther understood why members might offer one another lifts – it wasn’t in a very nice part of town. The church sat a little way down the street from a small parade of down-at-heel shops and was surrounded by unkempt blocks of flats and cramped-looking semi-detached houses. Several of the streetlights were out, and the pavement was obstructed by an abandoned mattress. It wouldn’t be ideal to leave a place like this late at night and walk to the ill-lit bus stop.
There was a small parking lot in front of the church, and Esther managed to find a spot under a feeble streetlamp, close to the door. They all got out of the car and went into the hall, which was brightly lit and full of people bustling around, setting up trestle tables and chairs. Sally greeted a number of people excitedly, telling anyone who would listen that this was her old friend Esther and Esther’s lovely daughter. She looked around her eagerly and stood, oblivious, in the middle of the room. This caused them all to be in the way of the busy set-up team, so Esther took it upon herself to start unfolding the chairs which were stacked against the wall. She began to set them up around a nearby table. She had done two or three when a thickset woman with iron-grey hair came over.
‘Those don’t go there,’ she said sharply. ‘The green chairs go with the round tables.’ She gestured to the other side of the hall.
Esther glanced across the room. She was tempted to ask why, since surely any chairs could go with any tables, but she knew that the answer would be ‘because we have always done it this way’, so she nodded, refolded the chairs and carried them across the room. Soon enough, Mrs Iron-Grey came over again and told her off for putting six chairs around a table instead of eight. At that point, she gave up and went back to stand with Sally and Lucie.
Despite the large number of people scurrying about and bossing one another around, it took quite some time for all the chairs and tables to be set out and for everyone then to be allocated a place. Esther found herself at a round table (with the green chairs) alongside Sally, Lucie and two older ladies who seemed determined only to speak to one another. There was also a man in his mid-fifties whose sideburns were only slightly more impressive than the brocade waistcoat stretched across his belly, and a painfully shy, awkward boy of about fifteen with bad skin and nails bitten to the quick.
Mrs Iron-Grey circulated among the tables and dropped quiz sheets on each of them. The man in the waistcoat officiously drew the pages towards him and took a gold pen from his top pocket. ‘I’ll write, shall I?’ he said, smiling benignly at the table.
Esther had met his sort before. Unbendingly convinced of his own superior knowledge, whatever the topic, he would clearly steamroller any opposition and write what he believed to be the correct answer, no matter what. She could fight him for possession of the quiz pages and at least try to make it a collaborative effort, but as this was Sally’s evening, and she had no wish to cause a scene, she opted to leave it.
The evening unfolded with dreary predictability. There was a picture-round page separate from the main quiz that Waistcoat Man considered beneath him, so he allowed the others to work through it. Given Lucie’s familiarity with popular culture (and a few hesitant interjections from the spotty young man), the old ladies’ eclectic general knowledge, Esther’s knowledge of literature and Sally’s of music of all types, they managed to identify all of the images.
Sure enough, when the quiz itself started, Waistcoat Man bulldozed his answers through for almost all of the questions. A few times Esther tried, mildly, to disagree, particularly on the ones about literature, but he kindly explained that she must be mistaken and that he was sure he was right. She was tempted to pull rank and tell him what her job was, but decided it would be more fun to watch his face when the correct answers were read out at the end. Sally took his rejection of her answers to musical questions less happily. She went a little pink when he told her categorically that ‘Return to Sender’ had been written by Elvis Presley himself.
‘I’m pretty sure it was Winfield Scott and Otis Blackwell,’ said Sally, her voice wavering a little.
‘Never heard of them,’ he said, as he wrote ‘Elvis Presley’ in firm black letters on the page.
Their table came second from last, and Mr Waistcoat perfected a regretful tilt of the head every time an answer was read out that differed from his own. However, they won the picture round outright and were each given a small box of chocolates. Sally and Lucie seemed happy with that, and Esther felt, in a petty way, vindicated.
By the time the chairs and tables had been restored to their rightful places, stacked along the walls of the hall (‘Not over there, over here!’ barked Mrs Iron-Grey, more than once), it was gone 11 p.m. ‘Let’s get you two home,’ said Esther, and ushered Sally and Lucie towards the door.
Now that it was properly dark, the area around the church looked even seedier. A group of youngsters hung around outside the kebab shop, drinking from cans and laughing loudly, and the pavement was liberally scattered with litter. Esther instinctively pressed the button that locked all the car doors, as they waited at the traffic lights. She was looking forward to getting out of this grotty part of town and putting the interminable evening firmly behind her. Sally was clearly nursing a grudge against their bombastic table companion, and she kept repeating that she’d known all along who wrote ‘Return to Sender’, which would have given them one extra point at least. Lucie, who had looked more and more sulky and bored as the night had progressed, had lain down on the back seat and seemed to be asleep.
The traffic light change seemed to take forever, and Esther tapped her fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. She planned to run in the morning and at this rate wouldn’t be in bed before midnight. She glanced casually to her right, just as a man rounded the corner, walking swiftly, clearly heading for the corner shop to make a late-night purchase. With a shock, she realized it was Phil. On one of their dates, he had vaguely mentioned that he too lived in north London, but she hadn’t registered that this was his neighbourhood. He wasn’t looking at the cars on the road, so she knew he hadn’t seen her, and she had a moment to observe him. His expression was grim and set, his mouth pursed in a thin, humourless line. How could she ever have thought him even vaguely attractive? With the wisdom of hindsight, his face looked pinched, nasty and unpleasant. She watched him turn into the corner shop, and at that moment the
traffic lights changed and she could pull away. Horrid man, she thought. She didn’t say anything to Sally.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Tuesday morning dawned, and as Esther awoke, her first thought was that Michael was coming for dinner. She got up, padded through to the kitchen to make coffee, and looked around her home with new eyes. It would be so strange to have him in her space. Strange and lovely. She imagined him sitting on a bar stool at the kitchen counter as she cooked, imagined him relaxing on the sofa in her living room, imagined him in her bed. They were all very pleasing images, especially the last one, although she thought it very unlikely that he would be in her bed that evening. Not with Lucie in the house.
Mercifully, her cleaner came on a Monday, so the house was clean and tidy. She had shopped for ingredients for dinner and would be home early enough to cook, shower and change in relative calm before Michael arrived at around seven. She put her coffee cup in the dishwasher and popped some bread in the toaster just as Lucie came yawning into the kitchen. ‘Morning, beautiful,’ she said cheerfully.
‘Morning, Mamma. I’m not feeling beautiful.’ Lucie came to rest her head on Esther’s shoulder.
‘Are you not well?’
‘No, just tired.’
‘Really? What time did you go to bed?’
‘I dunno,’ said Lucie guardedly. ‘Normal time.’
‘And what time did you go to sleep?’
‘Er…’
‘Were you watching stuff on your computer by any chance?’
‘A bit, maybe…’
‘You know I’m not one of those heavy-handed mums, but if you’re not getting enough sleep, I might have to have to start turning off the router at night.’
‘And then how would I do my homework?’ said Lucie, horrified.
‘I know it’s almost incomprehensible, but I did all my schoolwork and three degrees without access to Wikipedia.’
‘Yes, back in the Dark Ages. We don’t get our information from medieval illuminated manuscripts these days, you know. All our coursework is online.’ Lucie had a face like thunder, and Esther regretted starting this discussion first thing in the morning.
‘I know, sweetie,’ she said soothingly. ‘I don’t want to cut you off from the lifeblood of the internet, so I need you to police yourself. Okay? No more Gossip Girl marathons till midnight on a school night.’
‘Gossip Girl?’ said Lucie disdainfully, as if Esther had suggested something so absurd as to be beneath contempt.
Once again, Esther realized that she could not keep pace with the speed at which her daughter was growing up. Lucie had seemed better at the weekend, happier and more even-tempered. She hoped this was just a morning blip. She couldn’t face Lucie being sulky and foul when Michael was there.
‘You haven’t forgotten Michael is coming for dinner tonight?’ she said tentatively.
Lucie, who was getting a yoghurt out of the fridge, gave a very teenage, non-specific grunt, which may have been assent, or may not have been.
‘I thought I’d do the chicken casserole with chorizo.’
Grunt.
‘And maybe a fruit salad for after.’
Silence.
‘Does that sound okay?’
Shrug.
Esther took a deep breath and bit down hard on her toast. It was very difficult not to come out with a schoolmistressy admonition to be nice when Michael came, but she knew that would engender more eye-rolling and would almost certainly have the opposite effect. She also knew reminding Lucie that the invitation had in fact come from her and not Esther would be unhelpful. Rock. Hard place. She’d just have to hope that Lucie would have cheered up by the evening. She might stop off at the newsagent and buy a few magazines as bribes. Bribery, enforced silence and occasional yelling – her parenting techniques weren’t quite as noble as she’d envisaged.
She went into work with the best intentions, but what should have been a normal, calm day turned into something of a nightmare. She started the morning with a quick chat with Regina – neglecting to mention who was coming for dinner or that her social life had moved into a new phase. Then she went to her own office, believing she had three free hours for admin and lecture planning before her afternoon tutorials. But two minutes after she’d sat down, Regina followed her there in a flat panic – she had just had a phone call from on high. The principal had moved his deadline for a key report, and needed it that day. It should all still have been manageable, but when Esther turned on her PC, she got an ominous blue screen, and the computer refused to boot up. She rang IT support, but there was no technician available. Naturally, the materials she needed for the report were saved on her PC alone, as were her incomplete lecture notes. Regina called in one of the PhD students, who fancied himself as something of an IT expert, and he sat at Esther’s desk, clicking on things and staring at the screen. She couldn’t see anything much happening, and the clock was ticking. Her three free hours were trickling away. She gave up then and went to the library, thinking that at least she could do some sort of planning; she would email the principal and beg him for twenty-four hours’ grace on the report. She found a free computer on the quiet floor, which was earmarked for silent study. Unfortunately these rules were hard to enforce, and there was a group of rowdy students sitting around a machine two desks along, chatting and laughing. She frowned at them a few times, but they seemed oblivious to her displeasure.
She couldn’t access her online diary, so she had to make a guess at the order of her tutorials that afternoon. She managed to sketch out a plan for the classes she thought she had and fired off an email to the principal. When she glanced at her watch, it was already midday. She had achieved less than half what she had hoped to. There was no time to get something to eat. She dashed back to her office to find, to her great relief, that her computer was working again. The phone rang, but she ignored it. She just didn’t have time. She spent a feverish half-hour finishing her preparations for the afternoon classes and then discovered she was unable to print anything out. She raced round to Regina’s office with a memory stick and found Regina sitting there looking miserable.
‘I need to print out these lesson plans. Can I use your machine?’ she said breathlessly. ‘I’ve got about seven minutes before my first class.’
‘I’ve just got off the phone with the principal,’ said Regina. ‘He’s been trying to get hold of you. He’s not best pleased we can’t deliver the report.’
‘Did you tell him we had an IT disaster?’
‘I did, but he doesn’t seem interested. He has to meet with council this evening – it’s been moved up, for some reason – and he needs to know about our student recruitment. It’s urgent, apparently. He really tore a strip off me.’
‘The principal? But he’s a lamb.’
‘Not today.’
Esther glanced at her watch as the pages spooled, too slowly, out of Regina’s printer. ‘Well, I have three tutorials back-to-back. I can get back here around four. If you can pull the figures, I’ll write something up as soon as I get back. I was hoping to leave early, but clearly that’s not going to happen.’
She didn’t manage to get away from work until well after six o’clock – much later than she’d planned and much later than she usually left. She hadn’t factored in the traffic either, and she sat in a long line of stationary cars, seething with frustration, watching the minutes tick away. She rang both Lucie and Michael to say she was running late and eventually pulled up in front of the house at five past seven, just as Michael arrived. He came to meet her by her car and kissed her. Then he drew her into his arms and held her.
She was desperate to get inside. She’d had no opportunity to cook dinner, and she had no idea whether Lucie had made a mess in the house in her absence. She had wanted to shower and change before he arrived – as it was, her make-up had worn off and her hair was tangled and messy after the stress of the day.
Michael paused and looked at her, still holding her around the waist. ‘Yo
u’re vibrating like a plucked string, my lovely. Was it such a bad day?’
‘Awful day. And now I have nothing to give you for dinner and I look a mess…’
‘You look beautiful, and we can get fish and chips if needs be. Please relax. I’m just happy to be with you. I’ve brought a nice bottle of wine, and I’m looking forward to an evening with you and Lucie.’
‘You’re a nice man, Michael Wolfson,’ she said, and kissed him.
‘I was never any good at being one of those mean, chiselled bastards,’ he said. ‘So I’ve decided to embrace my inner niceness.’
‘Works for me,’ she said, looping an arm around his waist and walking him up to the front door. ‘Well, welcome to my house.’
They opened the door, and immediately Esther could smell the aroma of cooking. As they entered, Lucie came into the hallway, clutching a dishtowel.
‘I didn’t know how to do your chicken and chorizo thing,’ she began anxiously, ‘but I did manage to roast the chicken. Hope that’s okay. And I made salad.’
‘Darling, darling girl.’ Esther kissed her warmly. ‘You’re an absolute star.’
Lucie and Michael kept each other company while she dashed upstairs to wash, change and repair her face and tidy her hair. In all the craziness, she had failed to notice that it had been a beautiful day and was now a warm and balmy evening. When she came downstairs, she saw that they had set the table out on the deck behind the house. Michael handed her a glass of wine as she walked outside.
‘Well, you two have managed to transform a disaster of a day into rather a delight,’ she said, sitting down gratefully and sipping her wine.
‘You haven’t tasted my chicken yet,’ said Lucie.
‘It smells wonderful. And best of all, I didn’t cook it. I may just take you out of school and keep you at home as a permanent chef and housekeeper. You can take care of me.’
‘No thanks. I’m not Sally. If you go gaga, I’m putting you in a home.’
‘Who’s Sally?’ asked Michael.
