‘Shhh,’ I said, giggling, as the ponytail swung towards us. But Malcolm had only just got started.
‘And why don’t they put the name of the picture under the bloody picture? Why are they stuck in little clusters three feet away? Is it a Guess the Picture from the Caption game? I suppose it would liven things up a bit. Trying to decide if a green squiggle and a blue squiggle is Woods in Winter or the Village Postman’?
Malcolm looked into his empty glass and then at mine. ‘Shall I try to find you another drink? If they’d bring out those little cones of fish and chips it would be something.’
I swallowed the last mouthful of champagne and handed him the empty flute.
‘Won’t be long – have you seen all that nonsense in there?’ He jerked his head towards a side room, where more objects were arranged on various stands. ‘Who buys that junk? Do you know anyone who’d pay four hundred quid for a lump of purple driftwood?’
I walked slowly around the exhibits, finding a sea-worn plank with ‘I Wood’ carved into it coloured in violet and a dustbin painted in candy-pink stripes filled with shells.
‘I think it’s four hundred for the pair,’ I said when Malcolm returned. He snorted.
‘Used to be a lovely little boozer up the road. Had a pinball machine. Now even that’s a “gallery shop”: Ale and Arty, would you believe. Last time I walked past they were selling old kitchen chairs. The sort your mum had. They’d painted all the legs black, apart from one which was yellow and they wanted two hundred and twenty-five quid for it!’
He handed me a glass of champagne and looked balefully at his own orange juice. ‘Next time round, I won’t bother teaching kiddie journalists how to spell “accommodation”. I’m going to live above some shabby little grot shop, come up with a silly name like Clapham Junkshun, and flog rubbish to the gullible.’
‘That’s got a certain beauty,’ I said, pointing to a structure of silvery twisted metal around a blue glass ball.
Malcolm looked at it blankly. ‘I suppose you approved of Miss Emin’s filthy bedsheets,’ he said.
I smiled. ‘I did find that bed quite mesmerising.’
As Malcolm‘s face twisted in revulsion David came up behind me, throwing an arm around my shoulders and holding a hand out to Malcolm.
‘Enjoying the exhibits?’
‘No,’ said Malcolm.
‘Caroline and Tilly are here,’ David said to me. He was already moving me towards the other room.
‘I’ll see you in a bit,’ I said to Malcolm over my shoulder. ‘Nice to talk to you,’ I added, feeling awkward that he’d fetched me a drink and now I was being whisked away.
Caroline, who had changed into a turquoise fitted dress and a pair of heels, had discovered Kit and Nathanial and was most of the way down her glass of fizz. ‘Isn’t this all gorgeous?’ she said as we joined her and Tilly and Malcolm ambled towards a waitress with a tray.
‘He’s not bad either,’ she murmured as David ushered over more arrivals to meet us.
The gallery filled up fast and I gave up trying to look at the art through all the jostling bodies. I was getting hot and needed some water. ‘I’m just going out for some air,’ I shouted in David’s ear, as I tried to wriggle my way back towards the entrance, but he grabbed my arm and pulled in the other direction. ‘This way.’
He was holding my hand again as he led me thought the knots of people to a door at the far end. It opened into a walled courtyard with benches and an old metal fire escape running up one side, the steps dotted with coloured pots and what looked like a summer jasmine curling around the handrail. A large modern sculpture of two bodies entwined sat in the middle of the flagstones. ‘That’s lovely,’ I said, realising that I too was stroking my chin in the manner of ponytail earlier, and trying to think of something slightly more profound with which to sum up my findings.
‘It’s a Tristram Walters,’ said David, as if this should mean something, so I nodded and stroked a bit more, hastily stopping as I felt a bristle under my thumb. Christ, how had that grown without me spotting it before? I poked it with my finger. It was clearly a monster.
David sat on a bench and gestured for me to join him. ‘A bit more peaceful out here,’ he said, looking at me. ‘Yes, lovely,’ I said again, hoping the last golden rays from the setting sun, which were streaking the mellow bricks, weren’t also illuminating my whisker.
I felt in my bag, wondering if I had a pair of tweezers with which I could give it a surreptitious tug when David wasn’t looking. Instead I felt my phone vibrating. I glanced at the screen as I cut it off before it could ring. It was the second missed call from Fran. Another weekend meltdown about Jeremy’s kids, no doubt. I pulled out a bottle of water and took a mouthful. David was still talking about the sculpture.
‘Which contemporary artists are you into?’ he asked.
I suddenly couldn’t think of any. Then I remembered Malcolm and suppressed a giggle.
‘I like Tracey Emin’s blue sketches,’ I volunteered, ‘but I wasn’t so sure about the tampon in a glass case.’ Was this polite party chat? Caroline wouldn’t think so.
But David was smiling at me. I kept my eyes fixed back on his to make sure they did not drop to my chin, where I could feel the hair waving in the light breeze. ‘She does seem to have rather a preoccupation with bodily fluids,’ he said.
He was still looking at me. ‘Shall we go to dinner soon?’ he asked, moving, it seemed, a fraction closer.
‘Okay!’ I squeaked, my hand scrabbling further and closing around a pair of nail scissors. Perhaps I could chop the facial growth back, in the ladies.
My phone started ringing again. I dropped the scissors and grabbed it, suddenly fearful it was one of the kids this time, with a crisis unfolding.
‘Or would you rather stay a bit longer …?’
I shook my head, glancing down at my handset. It was Fran again. I frowned.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I think perhaps my friend …’
‘You’d better see what she wants.’ He sat back from me, his tone bright and brisk. ‘I’ll say some goodbyes …’
I had the phone to my ear as he disappeared back through the door into the crowd beyond. I could hear the panic in Fran’s voice.
‘Please, Tess, I need you to help me. Can you come right now?’
Chapter 18
‘So we need a taxi number,’ I instructed Tilly, who I’d found talking to Gabriel beside a broken mirror with ‘The next seven years of your life’ painted across it in black and white. I shuddered.
‘So where’s Jonathan?’ she said, clearly annoyed at being interrupted.
‘I’ve no idea,’ I snapped. ‘I just know Fran is there on her own with the children and she needs to get Georgia to A&E. Theo and Freya are in bed, she doesn’t want to take Jac and I’m over the limit.’ I stopped for breath and looked at Gabriel.
‘Hold on …’ he pulled a phone from his pocket and began tapping the screen.
‘What are you doing here?’ Malcolm loomed up behind him. ‘Is there a problem?’ he went on, seeing my face. He looked at Gabriel too. ‘What have you done now?’
‘This is so kind of you,’ I said again as Malcolm drove up the high street with me, Caroline and Tilly on board.
‘Just don’t ask me to hold any of them,’ he replied, indicating to turn left and accelerating down the hill.
‘Mum can do that.’ Tilly was still grumbling about being dragged away. ‘I don’t know why I have to be here as well.’
‘Because if the others wake up I might need help. And it wouldn’t hurt you to do something for someone else for a change!’
My daughter gave an exaggerated sigh. ‘Why are you in such a foul mood? Pissed off your date got cut short?’
As I turned, I saw Caroline give her a sharp nudge. David had shrugged good-naturedly and disappeared back into the throng, saying we would do it another time. I pushed down the pangs of disappointment as we
reached the outskirts of
town and turned into the long, curved road of detached houses where Fran lived.
She was on the line again, her anxiety palpable in my ear. ‘We’re nearly there.’ I cried, as Malcolm swung around the final bend. ‘Oh God – are you giving her fluids?’
Fran looked whiter than the baby. She’d left the front door open and we followed the screams to the kitchen, where she was standing at the sink, in a vomit-stained sweatshirt, mopping at Georgia in her arms while rocking Jac, strapped into a child seat, scarlet-faced and howling, backwards and forwards with her foot. Georgia hadn’t stopped throwing up and wouldn’t take anything to drink. ‘And now look at her–’ Fran’s voice rose. ‘She’s all floppy.’
‘She’s probably exhausted,’ I said.
‘One of the boys in Freya’s class had meningitis,’ Fran stared at me red-eyed, her voice rising further over Jac’s wails.
‘It won’t be that,’ I said, with more authority than I felt, ‘but you’re right to get her checked out.’
Fran nodded, looking around her wildly, ‘I don’t know what I’ve done with my keys.’
‘You can’t drive,’ said Caroline, glancing at Malcolm, who was standing in the doorway looking appalled. ‘You need to see to her.’
I’ll take you,’ he said from the doorway. Caroline nodded. ‘Shall I come too?’ she said.
‘Absolutely.’ said Malcolm meaningfully.
Fran looked at me. ‘I’m sorry, Tess, I didn’t know who else to ask – everyone’s got children, … Jonathan …’ Her voice shook.
‘Where is he?’
Fran looked past me into the hall. ‘Oh darling …’
Theo stomped into the room in pyjamas. ‘I want a drink,’ he announced, surveying us all. ‘Why is everybody here?’
‘Auntie Tess is going to look after you,’ Fran said. ‘While I take Georgia to the doctor.’ She looked at me bleakly. ‘Jonathan’s in Oxford with his kids. I needed a weekend off. I told him he had to take them to a hotel …’
‘Have you phoned?’
‘He’s not answering.’
She’d stopped rocking Jac and was rummaging in a quilted bag. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. ‘I think Jac needs changing. There’s nappies in their bedroom. I’d better take this one with me …’
Caroline picked up the bag. ‘Let’s go,’ she said firmly.
Fran followed her, Georgia pale and clammy in her arms. I peered at the tiny girl anxiously. Was it imagination or did she look a bit blue? Should we be calling an ambulance instead?
Caroline, as if reading my mind, said: ‘How far is it?’
‘Twelve miles,’ said Malcolm. Fran looked panicked.
‘Won’t take long at this time of night.’ Caroline was brisk. ‘Better to start getting there …’ she murmured to me as she shepherded Fran in front of her. ‘I’ll call you.’
At the sight of his mother disappearing, Jac’s shrieks reached new heights. He sobbed hysterically, thrashing about in the chair, that was now rocking unaided. I grabbed it and fumbled at the plastic buckles while Tilly looked on aghast.
‘I want a DRINK,’ said Theo urgently. ‘And I’m hungry.’
An unmistakable aroma rose from Jac as I lifted him out of the seat. Tilly wrinkled her nose.
‘Can you get Theo something?’ I said to her. ‘And us too. See if you can find some coffee?’ I carried Jac upstairs, suddenly post-alcohol weary. He was still crying. The noise drilled through my head as I opened various doors. It was a long time since I’d been up here.
It was a long time since I’d changed a nappy too. Keeping Jac still while trying to work out which way round the Pampers went and keeping his foot out of the shitty baby wipes, had brought me out in a light sweat by the time I heard footsteps coming along the landing.
‘Ugh gross.’ Tilly surveyed the scene on the bathroom rug. ‘He’s had five biscuits and says he’s still hungry.’
I pictured Fran’s face. That was probably Theo’s ration for the entire month. ‘Look for some cereal.’
Jac was still wailing and evidently required sustenance too. I tried to remember what babies of his age had. No doubt there’d be pots of something suitably puréed and organically sound somewhere. Or was he on toast and Marmite by now?
As I gathered him up, finally fragrant, Freya appeared in the doorway in her nightie, a soft orange duck clutched to her chest, eyes huge. ‘Where’s Mummy?’ she said in alarm.
After assuring her of her mother’s imminent return, I quizzed the 5-year-old on her sibling’s nutritional needs and enlisted her to locate the necessary.
Downstairs Freya clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Theo’s not allowed hot chocolate,’ she said, scandalised. ‘He gets silly.’
This, it transpired, involved the 3-year-old running in high-speed circles around the living room swinging a Power Rangers figure above his head with accompanying battle sounds, until he was puce.
‘Next time he gets water,’ I growled to Tilly when I had finally got him back to bed and was slumped on the sofa in exhaustion.
‘Next time,’ she said, ‘you’re on your own.’
‘We had to help. Imagine all four of them in the waiting room …’
I looked at Jac, who, after a quite staggering amount of various milk and baby snacks, was out cold on a floor cushion, having resisted all attempts to get him upstairs. I’d thrown a blanket over him and was leaving him there – he looked unconscious, but I knew the moment I lowered him into his cot he would open one beady eye and scream the place down.
‘Ugghh.’ Tilly was slumped opposite me. ‘How does Fran stand it?’
‘I had three of you. I remember when Oliver was about the same age as Georgia and he started fitting. Dad and I were terrified – I’ve never known him drive so fast – he went through a red light!’
Tilly looked suitably stunned.
‘It turned out to be some sort of virus, I think.’
‘Can’t you remember?’
‘And then when Ben fell off the bed – he was younger still. I cried all the way to the hospital …’
‘He’s still not forgiven you for that. Says that’s why he’s got that great big bent bit in his nose.’
‘He gets that from your father.’
‘And then when you were two and I dropped the iron …’
Tilly sat up, appalled. ‘You’re not going to look after my children!’
‘You’re not going to have any just yet, I hope.’ I retorted. ‘I’m not in any hurry to be a grandmother.’
‘Don’t worry – I’ll probably never meet anyone permanent anyway,’ Tilly said huffily.
‘Of course you will! One day you’ll find just the right person. And when you do, you’ll settle down and have a lovely family.’
‘Auntie C never has.’
‘She likes her independence,’ I said, not adding that Caroline’s idea of the right man was one that came in threes.
‘She’s too old now anyway,’ Tilly said dismissively.
‘Don’t let her hear you say that!’
I’d had a text from Caroline saying they’d got there and Georgia was being seen, but heard nothing since. It was nearly 2 a.m. Tilly was yawning and my eyes were heavy. I closed them for what felt like a second and woke with a start to the sounds of voices in the hall and Jac yelling.
‘Oh my God. Has he been crying all this time?’ Fran was in the doorway taking in the sight of her son screaming on the floor, Tilly sprawled across one sofa and me rubbing my aching neck on the other. I hastily turned over the cushion I’d been drooling on.
‘He’s been out for hours.’ I croaked. ‘He just that moment woke up. Is she okay?’
I nodded towards Georgia, who was asleep over Fran’s shoulder.
‘Ear infection. She’s got antibiotics.’
She lowered Georgia into my lap and scooped up Jac, whose wails subsided in gratitude that it wasn’t me.
Georgia’s eyes snapped open and she screeched in horror.
Fran re
trieved her. ‘I’ll just put them to bed …’
‘Let’s get out,’ said Caroline in a low voice, as a duet of wails reverberated up the stairs. ‘Malcolm’s waiting in the car and if she starts on about Jonathan again, we’ll be here till dawn.’
I prodded Tilly awake and began to put my boots back on. By the time Fran returned we were assembled in the hall.
‘They are asleep!’ she announced.
‘Fantastic,’ I said. ‘We’ll be off, then.’
Fran put her arms around me. ‘Thank you. Thank you to all of you. Thank Malcolm again. Oh and you, Caroline. I’m so–’
Caroline began to open the front door. ‘You’re very welcome.’
‘I can’t believe bloody Jonathan. Of all the times not to be here …’
‘But I thought you–’ I began, as Caroline frowned.
‘Not that he’s ever here, these days. And when he is, he’s on his laptop.’
‘I suppose he is working hard …’ I said, trying to be the voice of reason.
‘He leaves too early to help with breakfast and he’s home after they’re in bed–’
‘… to pay for everything.’
Caroline gave a tiny warning shake of her head.
Fran tossed hers. ‘Yes, his money pays for it all! And, as he keeps reminding me, we have a big mortgage. But I still feel–’
Behind Fran’s head, Caroline was sweeping her hand across her throat to indicate I should bring the conversation to a rapid close.
‘He has got two families to support,’ I finished lamely.
Fran’s eyes widened. ‘No, he hasn’t! He’s got ONE family and two children from his first marriage.’
Caroline looked at me in despair as Tilly rolled her eyes.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said hastily. ‘Insensitively put. I meant he has maintenance payments as well. We must go now …’
‘But sometimes it feels like it! He was on the phone to Susie for hours about Bella’s bloody parents’ evening. Very friendly!’
‘Oh come on,’ I patted her arm. Caroline now had the door wide open and was stepping outside, waving at Malcolm’s car beyond. ‘He finds Susie a right pain. You know that. He was probably just trying to keep the peace.’
Mum in the Middle Page 14
