This time, when he’d finished work, he stayed for tea. And a chocolate cornflake cake.
“God, these take me back,” he said between mouthfuls. He was sitting opposite me with his feet up on the rungs of the chair next to him and one elbow on the table. There was grass on the soles of his shoes. His forearms were richly sunburned and freckly like the top of crème brûlée, though underneath they were still pale, like the underside of a fish. He stretched suddenly, pushing his arms up in two Vs above his head, and I got a glimpse of the hollow beneath, the whiter skin and the darker damp hairs, like a secret place. “Remind me of my mum,” he said.
“Where is your mum?” I said. “Is she still alive?”
“No. She cocked it in ninety-seven.”
“Cocked it?” I tried not to laugh.
“Died.” He smiled ruefully. “She died.”
“I’m sorry. And what about your father?”
“Oh, dad’s alive and kicking. He’s back in Sydney. He was as weak as a kitten for a bit but he’s got used to life on his own now.”
“Does he miss you?”
“I guess so. But he’s got Mo, my big sister, and her brood to keep him busy.”
He did some pretend drumming on his thighs and on the edge of the table. “You got any brothers and sisters?”
“No. I’m an only child.”
“Spoiled?” he smiled.
“No, thank you very much,” I played mock-hurt. “I don’t think I am. I think if anything it’s made me more vulnerable, a bit of a loner; it’s made it hard for me to read people . . .”
“Uh-huh?”
I laughed. “Oh, all right, spoiled.”
He said, “You don’t seem spoiled to me.” He raised his eyebrows. “I’d say maybe you could do with a bit more spoiling.”
I laughed nervously. I said, “And is Sydney where you grew up?”
He leaned back in his chair. “Yeah. Sydney. It’s a great place. You should come visit some time.”
“I’d love that, but . . .” I shrugged. “In another life.”
“You should, you know.” He leaned forward. “I think you’d love it. The space and the beaches and . . . You really should come one day. I’ll show you round.”
I laughed, as if, even in another life, this wasn’t worth considering.
Pete said, “And the kids. They’d have a great time. And the food is cheap and the clothes . . .”
“So are you planning on going back soon?” I said.
It seemed important, for whatever reason, to know more about him. It felt nice to have a man in from the garden in the house. Jake never did any gardening. He didn’t have the clothes for it, he said.
“I dunno.” He shrugged. “Your guess is as good as mine. I like it here. I like London. I like the people . . .”
“So how long have you lived under Claire?”
“If only.” Pete raised an eyebrow. I laughed, a haha-not-very-funny laugh. “Not that long,” he said. “It’s Lloyd’s place. I’m subletting my room off someone who’s traveling round the world.”
“When are they back?”
“You’re asking a lot of questions.” He looked at me askance, wiggling his eyebrows.
“The Spanish Inquisition,” I replied.
“The Spanish what?” he said. He picked up Dan, who was crawling under the table, and dandled him on his knee. His bare brown knee.
I said, “It doesn’t matter.”
There was a pause. Pete was making Donald Duck noises for Dan out of the corner of his cheek. Dan was chortling. I smiled at them both. “Have you always been a gardener?”
“No,” Pete said, still as Donald Duck. “Have you always been a mother?”
“Now you’re evading. Do you like it?”
“What evading?”
“No. Being a gardener?”
Dan was wriggling so Pete put him back on the floor. In his own voice, he said: “In summer I do. I’m outdoors. I like being outdoors. Winters get a bit long. I do decorating and a bit of construction work if I need it. This year I’ve got some saved up so I might go snowboarding.”
“Aren’t you a bit old for that?” I said.
“You’re as old as the woman you feel.”
“And how old is she?” I said lightly.
Pete said, “Now that would be telling.”
There was a pause. And then Fergus came in carrying a fork. Pete jumped up and said, “Hey, big fella, want to give that to me before you do some damage?” Fergus handed it over without a whimper and went back into the garden to see what else he could find. Pete said seriously, “You have, you know, you’ve got great kids.”
I had started clearing the table, with Dan clinging to my knees. “They’re a handful,” I said.
“Spirited. Not a handful: spirited.”
“Maybe.”
“And good-looking.”
I grinned. “I’m biased, but . . .”
“They take after their mum.” He was studying me.
I tried not to look flustered, willed the flush back down into my heart. I turned to busy myself, frantically with the washing up. “Flattery will get you everywhere,” I said.
“But will it get me another chocolate cornflake thing?”
I wiped my hands on a tea towel. “It will certainly get you one of those.”
I passed him the plate, and he spent a long time with his head bent choosing. He held the plate with his hand so I wouldn’t move it away. There were some tiny dark green leaves in his hair. Ceanothus probably. Finally, he took one.
“Hey,” I said, “That’s the biggest.”
“I’m terrible that way,” he said, still holding his side of the plate. “I always take what I want.”
They’re tricky, moments like that. You think you know what’s going on, but you don’t know for sure. You can’t say, “Well, here I am, take me,” or “Well, you can’t have me: I’m not available,” because there is always the chance that it’s totally innocent banter, no double entendre intended, or at least intended but only to be taken so far.
And let’s face it. It had been a long time since I’d embarked upon anything even remotely flirt-related. I had, as Mel had so recently reminded me, been out of the game for eons. Not only did I not know the rules—Jake and I were practically pre-AIDS, certainly pre-AIDS-as-a-serious-consideration; all we had had to worry about was herpes and warts, and who cared about those these days?—but I didn’t even know the game any more. At least, I didn’t know what I was playing at.
So what did I do? I panicked. I defused. I put the emotional jigsaw back in its box. I tidied up the sexual skittles. I stepped back. I said, “I bet you do. You young things are all the same. Now get those grass-stained boots off my kitchen floor. And how much do I owe you?”
He looked a bit uncomfortable, but his smile didn’t shift. He said, without even glancing down, “I’ll clear up the mess, no worries. And as for payment, I’ll bill you. You don’t have to think about that now. Do you want me to come again in a week or two? Just to get you back on track?”
I wavered and told him I’d let him know. I felt breathless and sick somewhere between my stomach and my throat, churned up like the grass in the back garden. I knew what I had to say, though. I had to say it before he left. I took a deep breath, leaned back against the kitchen counter, and said, “This may sound a little odd, but there was something I wanted to ask you. I’m all embarrassed now, but: are you seeing anyone at the moment?”
He was knocking the grass off his soles on the back doorstep. He turned round, with a lopsided smile. He said, “No. And?”
I had to say it. It was now or never. I said, through a forced laugh, “It’s just I’ve got a friend. She’s really great and I think you’d really like her. And I just wondered . . .”
He said, still grinning, “A ‘friend’?”
I said, “No, honestly, I mean it. A friend. My friend Mel. She’s great. She’s a GP and she’s feisty and funny and . . .”
&nb
sp; Pete’s smile evened out. He said, not that nicely, “Little Miss Matchmaker, are you? Mrs. Matchmaker I should say.”
“Oh well, if you’re not,” I said quickly.
“I don’t think so,” he said, coming alongside me to wash his hands at the kitchen tap. “If that’s all right with you.”
It was a bit frosty for a moment or two. Then, picking up his bag, he said, “Do you think I look desperate or something?”
“I didn’t mean that. It was nothing. It’s just that you don’t often meet nice single men.”
“I see. Well, I’ll think about it, okay? Maybe when I come next time I’ll take her number.”
“Okay,” I said.
After he left, I finished off the chocolate cornflake cakes. All eight of them.
I saw Mel that night. I asked Jake to make sure he was home early, which he did with much puffing and lugging of heavy papers onto the kitchen table and important phone calls over bathtime. “They will go to sleep, won’t they?” he said, finally coming up to take over the toweling. “Only I’ve got to work on this pitch.”
“Of course they will,” I lied, skipping to the bathroom door. Of course Fergus won’t get out of his bed five minutes after you’ve put him there. Of course he won’t want another story. Of course he won’t want a drink of water ten minutes later. Of course Dan will let you put his pajamas on without wriggling out of the door. Of course he’ll go down without a murmur. Of course Fergus won’t wake him up asking for his glass of water. “Of course, they will,” I said, halfway down the stairs. I could hear a splash and a crash behind me. That would be Fergus throwing his toothbrush in the toilet, and slamming the lid down after it. I could hear wails. That would be Dan’s fingers between the lid and the bowl. “They’re angels,” I called from the street.
Mel and I met at The Drunken Stoat, the brasserie-cum-Mexican-cum-tapas-bar round the corner. It was all modern steel chairs and lacquered tables and mirrored walls, as if its decor was trying to keep one step ahead of its next change in cuisine. That night it was busy with a post-work crowd. Men in suits with their ties undone. Girls in thigh-skimming skirts and fancy tights. Lots of loud laughter and sitting on knees and piles of nachos with cheese. Sade remastered on the sound system. Could have been us, fifteen years ago, only no one was blowing smoke rings.
“That’s because no one smokes anymore,” said Mel, as we sat down in the corner. “Haven’t you noticed the link between the decline in smoking and the rise of tapas bars, or—” she unslotted the plastic-coated menu from its special metal rest on the table and waved it in the air—“sophisticated bar snacks. Young people have to do something with their hands. People don’t smoke any more; they snack.
“Except for doctors,” she added, lighting up.
“And advertising execs,” I said. I was sure Jake had started again. I could smell something musty on his jacket. And he’d left a box of Chez Gérard matches and a packet of mints on the hall table by his keys.
“Wouldn’t he have told you if he was?” Mel said.
“I don’t know. I’m not so sure about him these days. He’s still behaving a bit strangely.” I said these last two words in a Vincent Price voice. I might have expanded, but the waiter came along then and perched familiarly on the edge of our table. “Hi guys,” he said.
“Hi guy,” said Mel.
I ordered the deep-fried Camembert, with gooseberry sauce, starter-size. “I mustn’t eat too much,” I told Mel. “I’ve been eating cake all day.”
I was about to tell her then about my encounter with Pete. I was longing to have someone to dissect our conversation with, to relive the thrills without the danger, to hear what she thought. But her mind was still on Jake. She said in a sympathetic voice, “In what way is he still behaving strangely?”
I fiddled with the see-through plastic salt and pepper shakers, spilled a little pepper and dipped my finger in it. “I don’t know. He’s at the office all the time. Still no sex. Something’s up with him. It’s almost as if he’s seeing someone else.” I snorted, as if I realized this was ridiculous.
Mel looked serious. She said, “Oh, Maggie. You’ve always been like this. Whenever someone’s really in love with you, you always think they’re going to leave you. I mean, remember Robin and Tom . . .” She listed some of my ex-boyfriends.
I cut her off. “Yes, yes,” I said. But she had more to say.
“Just because your father left your mother doesn’t mean every man leaves every woman. Jake is a good bloke. Talk to him if you’re worried about something. Don’t be too hard on him. He was looking really tired the other weekend. And actually to be frank you’re the one who seemed on the distant side. Is he under strain from work?”
“Er . . .” I said, chastened. “I think so.”
She gave me a sharp look.
“Yes, yes, no, he is. He’s got a big pitch coming up.”
“What pitch?”
“Kyushi wants one agency across Europe or something. TMT&T has got to rebid for the business from scratch, fighting off all the opposition, and then they might lose the account altogether.”
“What implications would that have?”
“I don’t know.”
She frowned. “Why don’t you know?”
“I haven’t felt like asking.”
Mel shook her head. Her brow was still knitted. “Well, maybe you should. You’re lucky not having to work, you know. I know you can get fed up at home with the children all day, but it’s your choice and Jake has made it possible for you.”
“I know,” I said.
Mel said, “You don’t have to stay at home. You’ve got a degree. You could go back to magazines or publishing. It’s been your decision.”
“Yes, I know, but it’s not that simple.” I was about to talk about the invisible tug between mother and child, the competing forces of selfishness and selflessness, the physical need to be with them, the fear of what they’d be without you . . . my own crapiness in every job I’d ever done.
But then she said softly, glancing away: “Some of us don’t have a choice.”
“Point taken,” I said, putting my hand on her arm.
The food arrived then and, while I picked at crispy Camembert and Mel tucked into a plate of fettucini with salmon, we moved on to Mel’s day and the problems she’d been having with one of the other partners, a woman of her age who Mel didn’t think was pulling her weight, and we discussed tactics and the redistribution of nights on call. And then she told me about one of her patients, an elderly woman who’d been into surgery a lot over the last couple of years with heart problems and blood pressure issues, and how she’d seen Mel a few weeks back because she’d been coughing for a bit and maybe even seen a bit of blood, and Mel had sent her off for an X ray. “You just knew,” Mel said, putting down her fork, “what the results were going to be. She’s smoked for years and . . . Anyway, she came in yesterday saying she felt a bit better, and I had to tell her and it’s just awful. Awful.”
“Oh, God,” I said, suddenly stricken, “I have to take my neighbor for a chest X ray soon. Oh, God, I hope that’s not cancer. I’ve only just got to know her.”
“Might not be. Anyway, I had to go straight from her to this other woman, a real Heart Sink Patient, who’s morbidly overweight . . . really really fat, and she thinks that all her problems will be solved if she could just be slimmer and she keeps coming back, trying to get us to refer her to a specialist to staple her stomach, which is not the answer. So I had a really awful conversation with her, and I could feel myself getting more and more tense, and then Tara the receptionist buzzed me through two ‘emergency patients’ who, it turned out, were a young couple who’d forgotten to have their jabs. They were going on holiday to Kenya in three days time. Well, I just hit the roof. It was just the end. I mean, there are people who really are emergencies and here they were, anyway, I had a real argument with them but I ended up giving the shots to them, but I was so grumpy.”
I laughed in
sympathy.
“But.” Mel lowered her voice. “After they’d gone, I realized that I’d given the woman the polio and the yellow fever and the Hep A, but I hadn’t given her the typhoid . . .”
“Oh my God!”
“I know, isn’t it awful. I didn’t know what to do. And because we’d had such a barney, I couldn’t ring her, so I’ve just . . .”
“What? What have you done?”
“I’ve just left it.”
“Oh my God!”
“Is that just awful, do you think? It is, isn’t it? I think they were just going to a resort on the coast, but even so. It’s just that I’ve had two nights on call and then the cancer woman and . . . Oh,” she pushed her plate to the other side of the table and pulled over an ashtray. “I wish I could give it up and do something else. I don’t know . . . marry a rich banker or something.”
Which took us to Piers, her anesthetist. She raised her eyes to the ceiling when he was mentioned, lit another cigarette, and poured herself another glass of Chardonnay. I told her I didn’t understand why she didn’t just finish it, that it wasn’t fair to him to keep him dangling. “I know,” she said guiltlessly, “I keep trying. I’m so horrible to him. I make thinner and thinner excuses. He must think I have the weirdest menstrual cycle. But he just doesn’t get the message. What I need is to fall madly in love with someone else. What happened, by the way, about the gardener chap?”
“Oh,” I said. Even to my own ears, I sounded hesitant. “I think maybe we’d better forget it.” I took a long glug of wine. “It turns out,” I said, “I think he’s seeing someone.”
Mel looked unconcerned. “Oh drat,” she said. “Oh well, I wasn’t that sure about the dirty fingernails anyway. Piers’s at least are always so clean.” She looked around the room. A girl was shrieking with laughter at the next table. Probably because the man next to her—a colleague? her boss?—had his hand up her skirt. “Too clean,” she added gloomily.
Having It and Eating It Page 13
