by Judy Astley
‘It’s down there, on the right, next to the roundabout.’ Rosa pointed out the store to Desi. You couldn’t miss it, the building was a local landmark, a design statement of its time, its roof designed with great triangular white shapes that were supposed to represent sails. To her, in the mood she was in, it looked as if someone had sat on Sainsbury’s roof, made a small Sydney Opera House out of bits of old Christmas card – and let them collapse.
‘It looks like a row of big prawn crackers,’ Desi commented, snorting at his own hilarity in that way that made you avoid looking at him in case stuff was cascading out of his nose. She clenched her fingers together and reminded herself it wasn’t his fault his upbringing had almost entirely been at the hands of a starchy ex-royal nanny and a remote minor public school. It wasn’t his fault that he was the one person in the whole world who thought Harry Enfield’s Tim Nice-But-Dim was a terrific role model. Before he’d arrived in Plymouth, Desi hadn’t ever even seen a prawn cracker. Now, unless someone did some food-shopping, he and his flatmates were in danger of living on nothing else.
Rosa consulted her list. It hadn’t been her idea, this communal kitchen business. She’d been happy enough with the original arrangement – half a fridge plus a cupboard each for their food, all individually bought, cooked and consumed as and when each of them felt like it. She’d reckoned without Kate, though, or Rota-Girl as she now thought of her, who’d appealed to simple financial student greed and worked out how much they’d save by pooling resources and even, at night, actually cooking, eating together and then washing the dishes – there and then – according to who was designated on that day’s list. The three boys had been easy to convince (Rota-Girl had mentioned the magic words ‘extra beer money’), Jemima spent all her time with her boyfriend and didn’t care, but Rosa wasn’t happy. She’d come away from home to enjoy being independent at last, to eat when and what she fancied with no-one going on about vitamins or fruit, and to sleep late with no-one nagging her. She wanted to exist on Rice Crispies if she chose, or Scotch eggs from the Shell garage up the road, followed by a Dime bar or six.
She’d pointed out the hitches such as: what if you were out a lot? What about Will being vegetarian? What about Desi, who thought a spatula was a shoulder bone and that roasting, steaming and boiling were Caribbean weather descriptions? But Kate had a weird, non-verbal approach to conflict. She just sat silently, like someone in the middle of yoga, and studied your face while you protested. You ended up feeling that if you didn’t agree with her there must be something wrong with you, with you personally, not with her point of view. And she had the kind of leggy, flicky-hair blonde good looks that made most women snarl. So naturally the boys in the flat thought she was the next best thing to having Claudia Schiffer sleeping down the hall. It would be almost worth buying a mouse to release into her room, having first laid bets that she’d be the type who’d jump on the bed squealing the minute she saw it. Rosa also knew, though, that if a wild mouse turned up when no-one else was around, Kate would calmly and capably pick it up with bare hands and chuck it out of the window. One day, Rosa predicted, if the direst forms of Thatcherism ever made a comeback, Rota-Girl Kate would be in sole charge of the nation.
‘We can’t park here,’ Rosa said as Desi nosed the Clio into a parent-and-child space.
‘But it’s got a picture of a shopping bag on wheels,’ he protested.
‘No Desi, that’s a drawing of a baby buggy, you know, a pram thing? Like for babies?’
‘Right. I see.’ But from where Rosa was sitting, Desi looked as if he didn’t, quite.
As Desi parked the Clio in a more distant space, Rosa thought of her father, who would soon be perfectly entitled to park in the buggy-pictured slots. She could imagine him worrying that people might think he was the grandfather. He’d be sure to have the full state-of-the-art kit for this baby: a truly fancy pram with lots of add-on bits, like a detachable car seat and a smart rain cover. It would have cashmere blankets. Later, he’d buy Leonora one of those cool three-wheel strollers because she’d start talking about getting her figure back and would keep mentioning the idea of power-walking through the park. She wouldn’t actually do anything so energetic, though, or if she did it would be without the baby, and in the comfort of the nice warm luxury hotel spa that she’d been talking about at the wedding. Rosa felt small stirrings of pity for her dad. He’d be on a hard-work treadmill for ever now, shoring up the mounting expense of keeping Leonora and this new child. She hoped it wouldn’t be an only one, like she’d been, though; she could do with a sympathetic brother or sister right now, someone she could just phone and moan at, grumble about trivial things (Rota-Girl, Desi’s inability to tell a lettuce from a cabbage, the permanent smell of sock from Paul’s room next to hers). As she pointed Desi in the direction of the cheapest yogurts she had one of her occasional what-if moments, about what it would have been like if her little brother had survived. He’d be fifteen now, shambling around and crashing into things as he grew too fast. He’d have spots and huge hands and probably barely speak beyond a hostile grunt. Except to his sister: he’d love his big sister. And she’d love him.
‘Is this the right rice?’ Desi cut into Rosa’s thoughts. He was holding up a packet and looking worried.
‘No, Desi, that’s for rice puddings. We need this one, the basmati.’
‘Oh, but . . .’ Desi slowly put the packet back on the shelf and reached for another.
‘But?’
Desi grinned shyly. ‘Thing is, I actually quite fancied a rice pudding. One like . . .’
Rosa took pity on him. She would never subscribe to her grandmother’s men-need-looking-after creed, but sometimes Desi resembled a confused Martian on a reluctant exchange visit to Earth. ‘One like home,’ she finished his sentence for him. ‘I know, Desi, it’s all right, put it in the trolley.’
You’re a soft sod, Rosa, she told herself: now you’ll have to phone home and find out how to make rice pud.
When she’d said, ‘I won’t be in the way,’ Gwen really meant, ‘Look at me, Melanie, look how carefully I’m tiptoeing round the house!’ From her study, close to lunchtime the next day, Mel could hear Gwen very slowly filling the kettle, as if by running the tap at no more than a trickle it would make less noise. Cupboards were being opened and closed with all the stealthy concentration of a burglar who suspected a guard dog might be dozing within savaging distance.
She heard the back door creak as it was opened, and from her desk Mel watched Max’s face light with a broad and cheerful smile. Another cup of tea. That must be about the seventh Gwen had given him and Luke that morning. It accounted for the downstairs loo flushing every twenty minutes.
Tina Keen had returned to HQ from the mortuary. Mel got her stripped off in the locker-room shower and allowed all trace of the air of death to trickle away down the grubby drain. Tina sploshed Clarins Eau Dynamisante shower gel all over her body, reminding Mel that Tina’s creator was about to run out of the same product. Several times in her books she’d mentioned by brand name the odd luxury items – Pol Roger champagne, Bendicks Bittermints, La Perla underwear – for all of which she was enthusiastic herself, in the fond hope that some eager young executive might take it into his head (it would certainly be ‘his’, a woman would see straight through the ploy) to send her a complimentary boxful of goodies. This craven product placement hadn’t yet worked, but at least Mel felt she was granting Tina the benefit of items she herself would prefer.
She allowed Tina to dress (it wouldn’t do, somehow, to leave her shivering) in lavender satin underwear, a simple though decidedly clingy tee shirt and a suit that she hoped would pass for Armani, then closed down the computer and went downstairs. The noise in the kitchen was reaching a crescendo: her mother was in search of lunch.
‘Haven’t you got any soup?’ Gwen asked, as Mel came into the room.
‘I don’t think so, unless there’s some instant packet ones in the cupboard,’ Mel told her. ‘L
ook, there’s a couple of things I need, so why don’t we go into the town and have lunch at Fasta Pasta? My treat?’
‘Oh, I don’t know.’ Gwen looked flustered. ‘I’m not keen on all this spaghetti sort of thing. I’d rather just have a sandwich, I think. I’ve found plenty of tuna.’ She had, too: at least seven cans of it had been extricated from the cupboard and piled high on the table.
‘Well, it’s one of those things you always pick up in the supermarket, isn’t it?’ Mel grinned at her. Her mother gave her a look. ‘So’s soup,’ she said, and Mel started counting to ten.
‘Are you there?’ Mrs Jenkins’s lilac head bobbed up and down by the fence. Mel opened the door. ‘Yes, it’s OK, I’m here. Are you all right?’ she called back.
Mrs Jenkins unhooked the gate and came through, shooing her little dog back to its own side. ‘I don’t want him getting anything on his paws,’ she explained, glaring at Max and Luke and their soggy mud-pie heap of concrete with which they were filling in the gaps between the stone slabs. She followed Mel into the kitchen.
‘They’re making a big mess out there. My daughter Brenda will be looking down on that when she comes to visit,’ Mrs Jenkins told Gwen.
‘It is a mess, you’re quite right,’ Gwen agreed. ‘I don’t know when they’ll ever get it finished. Or what it’ll look like.’
Mrs Jenkins, happy to have found a like-minded ally, sat down at the table and picked up the top tin of tuna from the pile. ‘You don’t see so much salmon these days,’ she mused, perusing the label and screwing up her eyes to read ‘dolphin friendly’.
‘Mrs Jenkins, this is my mother, Gwen Thomas.’ Mrs Jenkins looked at Mel as if she was crazy. ‘I know that. You’ve got her nose.’ She turned her attention to Gwen. ‘I’m eighty-one you know.’
‘That’s a good age,’ Gwen commented obediently.
‘No it’s not. It’s a bloody terrible age. But Brenda’s coming over in two weeks and with the children.’ She got up and peered into Mel’s bread bin, hauling out a large linseed and soya loaf that Mel trusted to ward off any pre-menopausal forays of symptoms. ‘Shall we have a sandwich, dear? Though this bread’s got a lot of seeds. They’ll get under my plate. Haven’t you got any Mighty White?’
‘No, sorry, I haven’t.’ Mel watched as Mrs Jenkins ran her fingers over the bread’s surface and the little seeds fell off into the sink. Her mother watched, hungry and eager.
‘This is better.’ Mrs Jenkins showed Gwen the bald bread surface and the two of them nodded together, solemnly.
‘OK, I’ll make you a sandwich.’ Mel took the bread from Mrs Jenkins’s gnarled fingers, wondering if she should go out and round up Max, Luke, possibly Perfect Patty from number 14 and anyone else who might like to work their way through seven cans of tuna.
‘No, it’s all right, dear, Mrs Jenkins and I will be fine on our own.’ Gwen was slyly insistent. ‘Why don’t you go out? Take yourself off to that spaghetti place you were just talking about. You could do with a break.’
It was like being sent out of the room for talking in class. Mel, feeling unwelcome and outnumbered in her own home, abandoned Tina Keen for the day, left her mother and Mrs Jenkins discussing their respective families, drove into Richmond and parked in Waitrose’s car park. With no particular plan in mind she wandered down the road towards the shops. At Pret a Manger she bought a small sushi selection and a bottle of orange juice, then went and sat on a bench beneath a chestnut tree on the green. There was a breeze gathering, and every few minutes there would be a soft thud as a conker hit the grass.
‘You don’t want to sit there, love,’ a man carrying a bucket and a short ladder called out to her as he passed the bench. ‘You’re right in the line of fire.’ She didn’t mind, she quite enjoyed the mild feeling of risk: most of the conkers were still encased in their spiny green shells, reminding her of mines that threatened warships in old films. She was also directly under the Heathrow flight path. Every sixty seconds a massive plane roared across the green, ripping through the otherwise tranquil air. There’s no bloody peace, Melanie thought, as she got up and stuffed the sushi box into a litter bin. Across the road a coachful of elderly ladies was being unloaded for an afternoon theatre trip. Every one of them had a silvery-grey perm and she thought of Rosa who’d have given them one glance and muttered ‘cauliflower-heads’. She strolled along to look at the billboards, see what was on – Maureen Lipman was starring in Peggy for You, about the theatrical agent Peggy Ramsay. Seeing this suddenly seemed a far more attractive prospect than trailing round the shops trying on clothes that she didn’t particularly need.
Inside the cool dark theatre there really was peace. Now that Mel was sitting in the scarlet and velvet dress circle (a spritzer pre-ordered at the bar for the interval) with no need to make conversation or do any thinking, working or placating, she almost felt as if she’d run away. No-one knew where she was. No-one expected her to be anywhere, or could reach her by phone, fax or e-mail. She would do this more often – it was a delight to be able to be this spontaneous – and you could only do it when you had no-one to answer to. Around her the matinée ladies chatted away about plans for Christmas, plans for holidays and plans for further outings, and she relished her own silent moments by thinking about nothing at all. Then there was the moment of never-failing thrill when the lights dimmed and the curtain went up. Maureen Lipman sat silently on a sofa being Peggy Ramsay, theatrical agent, reading a script. Among the first words was ‘fuck’, and the audience of leisured ladies drew in its excited collective breath.
Eight
‘Now no excuses, Mel sweetie – as you’re so determined to be completely unattached you’ll be free to come to supper on Wednesday, won’t you?’ This was Sarah’s slightly less than gracious invitation to Melanie on the phone. Mel was in the garden, sitting on the wall and waiting to help Max spread bags of pebbles between the new stone slabs. It was a soft golden late October day, the kind that makes you think summer is trying very hard not to give in to the approaching winter.
Mel laughed. ‘Does being unattached mean I can’t have a social life unless mates like you feel sorry for me? Do I have to stay in and crochet in front of Friends every night, eating lonely Mars bars and wishing I had a mad New York loft existence?’
‘Yes, it means exactly that – though actually that version sounds bliss. So you can come, then? I’ve got a surprise for you . . . no, don’t even try to guess, you never will . . . just come. Don’t bring anything, it’s just kitchen food. Cherry’s coming too.’
‘So it’s feed-the-singles night, then?’ Mel teased.
‘What? Heavens no, anything but! See you on Wednesday. Eightish. Oh, and wear something gorgeous . . . er . . . well at least not your old jeans, OK? Bye, darling.’ And she was gone.
It was always a treat to eat at Sarah’s. Mel was a lazy and reluctant cook, but Sarah excelled at the hostess arts that were currently scorned as being well out of fashion, making her guests feel that she’d really pulled out all the culinary stops for them. Her idea of a ‘kitchen supper’ was what would definitely qualify these days as the best parts of a full-scale dinner party, with elaborate table settings that had you convinced Sarah must have been a model pupil at a finishing school, stunning food, lavish and delicious wines, yet all without the tense formality that everyone used to suffer at such weirdly stylized events. In their own homes, Mel or Cherry might knock together a bubbling lasagne with salad followed by various fruits and cheeses, served casually on the scrubbed bare table for their guests. Sarah, on the other hand, would consult her many shelves of cookery books and come up with a menu that might well combine the trickiest of Raymond Blanc, Gordon Ramsay and Marco Pierre White. Napkins would be all of a match with the tablecloth, which would probably be something new in crisp rough linen from Designers Guild and complemented by a row of candles and tightly packed posies at intervals along the table – lilies of the valley, sweet peas, tiny pink rosebuds or the narcissi that don’t smell of c
at pee.
There was one aspect of dinner at Sarah’s that intrigued Melanie: the instruction about what to wear. Sarah was clearly up to something – she must have found a free-range available male whom she considered the perfect new man for Mel, and she expected her to dress for the role of Woman Seeking Life Partner. Presumably she’d discovered a glut of spare blokes somewhere (where? the only massed lone men in this area lurked under the bridge and smelled of excess cider), and was having a last-ditch attempt at fixing up Cherry as well. She’d have to go through her wardrobe and come up with something appropriate – something that would look as if she was at least trying to obey Sarah’s instructions, but which was also an outfit decidedly not aimed at seducing a fellow guest. Not an easy call.
Max hauled the last of a dozen big bags of stones from the back of his truck. ‘Bloody hell, Melanie, I should be charging you . . . oh, what’s that thing where houses fall into complete disrepair . . . dilapidations. That’s the one. This job is wrecking my poor old body. I’ll never be the same again.’
Mel watched him as he clutched his back like a massively pregnant woman. He leaned against the wall beside her, took out his tobacco pouch and started constructing a skinny roll-up. ‘It’s going to look superb, this garden. Excellent.’ He nodded slowly, approving the work that he’d put in. There wasn’t yet a single plant in sight. The York stone paths were now all laid, the beds round the edges of the garden were dug over and ready for planting, and in the squares between the stone there was a lining of black semipermeable fabric, onto which the bags of pale pinkish pebbles were to be emptied.
