I concluded that I had to do two things. The first was that I would introduce Katie to my friends, poor girl; the second was that I was going to invite her home to meet my parents.
‘Katie, I’m thinking of going home for the weekend near my birthday in April. Why don’t you come?’
‘Well, I’m not sure.’ Katie looked terrified.
‘Don’t be like that, it’ll just be a nice normal weekend with my family. And we’ll get fed.’
‘Is it important to you?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ruthie, I don’t know why I let you do this to me, but OK.’ I’d won.
‘Oh, and Katie.’
‘What now?’
‘I want you to come and meet my friends.’
‘God, Ruth, why?’
‘Because they need to meet you. You’re a part of my life they don’t understand and, well, I’m sure you’d like them.’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No.’ It was settled.
My friends shared Katie’s reluctance, and although they swore they wouldn’t like her, they grudgingly agreed to meet her. ‘I’m going to give her a piece of my mind,’ Jess said.
‘I think she’s very brave coming to dinner. I’m going to find out just how many drugs she’s addicted to,’ Sarah said haughtily.
‘I can’t bear to meet the person who’s ruining my friend’s life,’ Sophie said.
‘Is she fit?’ Thomas said. I arranged for Katie to come to dinner at our house. I told her my friends were looking forward to meeting her. I forgot to tell her I was feeding her to the lions.
***
I cooked, without any help, and Katie was late.
‘How rude,’ Jess said.
‘She’s always late,’ I defended her, but I was met by a tutting disapproval.
When she did turn up, she was pleased to meet everyone and for a few minutes they forgot to scowl. I was amazed by her outfit: I was used to seeing her in either outrageous clothes or work clothes – short skirts, saris, sequinned cardigans that reached the floor, mad trousers and, of course, the blue platform boots. Tonight she was wearing black trousers, a pink jumper and black boots. Her hair hung straight from her face instead of the scraped-back or abstract I was used to. She looked positively demure.
‘Hi, it’s good to meet you all.’ She said this with genuine enthusiasm. It seemed to do the trick.
‘You, too,’ Thomas said. Jess, Sarah and Sophie managed a sort of smile. She brought wine, no grass, to my relief, and sat down to ask questions. ‘Sophie, Ru said you were an actress, what are you doing at the moment?’
‘I’m rehearsing for a new play by a young writer, but I’m not allowed to tell anyone what it’s called. I’m playing the lead girl – she’s a hooker,’ Sophie said proudly.
‘God, you don’t look much like a hooker, I hope they give you a good makeover,’ Katie said. Sophie looked pleased and everyone laughed kindly.
‘Tell me about Ruthie at university. Was she as man-crazy as she is now?’
‘Worse, if you can believe it. Although she’s a darling and we love her, of course, she’s still mad,’ Jess replied. Everyone laughed again.
‘Katie, what do you want to do with your life?’ Trust Sarah to play recruitment consultant.
‘I don’t know. I always thought I wanted to be an artist, but then I wasn’t sure, I sort of lost it a bit. Anyway, now I’m drifting.’
‘You don’t think you’ll go back to art?’ Sarah was not yet satisfied.
‘Maybe. It always was my true love. I just think I’m lacking inspiration. I still hope that one day I can make it my career.’ Katie smiled. Sarah smiled. Sarah actually smiled. Katie had said the magic word: career.
By the time we had finished the starter, everyone was in love with Katie.
‘Have you ever thought about working in PR? You’d be great.’ Jess.
‘If you ever need a new job, just call me.’ Sarah.
‘It would be nice to go to an exhibition sometime, if you want.’ Sophie.
‘Name the day and I’ll take you both out.’ Thomas.
I was gobsmacked. My friends had not mentioned my demise once: they were too busy sucking up to Katie, who kept everyone laughing. They were as mesmerised by her as I was.
When all the food was eaten, the wine drunk and the cigarettes smoked, Katie stayed over and we talked into the early hours.
‘I really like your friends.’
‘Yeah, they’re great,’ I admitted, ‘and they liked you.’
‘Did they? They’re a bit different from you.’
‘Most people are, apparently.’
‘No, that’s not true. And the twenty-first century is a big place. There’s enough room for everyone.’
I fell asleep oddly comforted by that thought.
The next day my friends couldn’t stop talking about Katie: she was wonderful, she was funny and she was smart. They had forgotten what a bad influence she was and what a drug addict she was. I was pleased, it was nice to know that now I had their blessing for my friendship they would leave me in peace.
***
Sophie’s boyfriend, the Thespian, was at our house a lot. We all looked on him as a joke, but we did so affectionately. Even Sophie seemed to think so. She didn’t make half the effort for him that she had for the Porsche, but he doted on her and she seemed to like it. He was auditioning for a part in a well-known soap opera as a waiter, and he had two lines, ‘Are you ready to order?’ and ‘Thank you’. He was very nervous and asked if he could practise on us. Being the drama queen he was, he needed the setting to help him ‘feel the role’, so our kitchen was turned into a restaurant, with the table laid, candles, a pretend menu and wine.
The four of us were his customers. The Thespian was a perfectionist and would start all over again if one thing wasn’t right. I didn’t help; I kept laughing, and in the end Sophie said, ‘Nik, I think the last one was wonderful, spot on,’ and we all agreed.
‘Perfect,’ Sarah said.
‘The best,’ Jess said.
‘Wonderful,’ I said.
He seemed to accept this and stopped. I was so relieved – we’d been doing it for an hour. I hoped he wasn’t going to get any bigger parts in the near future. He made Sophie happy because he loved her and he didn’t intimidate her. In fact, he couldn’t even intimidate me. Which meant that even if he’d wanted to he couldn’t intimidate anyone. When he left us, we were all exhausted.
‘Do you love him, Soph?’ I asked.
‘No, not really, but I like him and he’s good for me. I don’t think it’s for ever but then again I don’t know. I like the romance in him, even if he can be a bit …’
‘A bit what?’
‘A bit of a wally.’ We all laughed.
‘Huh!’ Jess scoffed.
‘What?’
‘Listen to you two, romance this and romance that. I’ve bought this book called The Rules. If you follow it you’re certain to be able to marry the man you want, when you want. It’s far easier than all this romance stuff.’
‘That’s ridiculous. Love is the most natural thing in the world, you can’t do it to order and you certainly can’t do it by rules.’ I was horrified. Although the way my love life had been going lately, perhaps it wasn’t such a bad idea.
‘Of course you can. I’m going to find my man at twenty-six, I’ll marry at thirty, have one child at thirty-four and another at thirty-six. What could be simpler?’ Jess was indignant.
‘Falling in love is not something you can plan as rigidly as your career.’
‘Don’t you know it’s the new millennium now?’ was Jess’s curt reply.
Sarah shared Jess’s view. ‘Love is something I’ll do when I’m ready. I don’t know when that will be, or even if it will be,’ she said.
‘No, it doesn’t work like that. It will happen when it wants to.’
‘No, I’ll decide when and if I wish to fall in love, thank you.’
‘No,
you’ll just fall in love when you’re least expecting it and when you least want it.’
‘No, I won’t.’
‘Yes, you will.’
‘People only fall in love if they want to. It’s totally controllable and I don’t want to hear another word.’ Sarah looked stern. I decided it was best not to argue. I was trying to sell romance, but at the same time I had been trying to manipulate my own love life. I certainly wasn’t leaving anything to Fate. I was a hypocrite.
Katie told me she’d only get a permanent boyfriend when she got tired of partying and wanted a man to cook her dinner every night. She didn’t care about the big romance thing as long as he did the laundry and was good in bed. I sometimes wondered if Sophie and I were a dying breed.
I told my mother I would be bringing Katie home to meet her soon, and my friends kept asking when they would see her again, so I was allowed to carry on my debauched lifestyle. Except I didn’t really want to. After my man hunting and my failure, I felt that perhaps I had tired of the social life rather more quickly than Katie had predicted. I loved Katie, but she wasn’t really the reason for going out. When we went out, we generally went our separate ways. She headed for the people she knew, I headed for the men. Although I knew that going out would be the only way I could meet men, I just had to remember the men I had met so far to make staying in for the rest of my life seem attractive. Once again, I didn’t know what I wanted. I couldn’t get a boyfriend, I couldn’t keep a boyfriend, I couldn’t find a boyfriend, I couldn’t even have a one-night stand. I was having a relapse.
***
I sat in the kitchen drinking tea and feeling sorry for myself. There is nothing better than sitting at a pine kitchen table to make you feel at home. I had just found a packet of cookies, which made everything so much better, when Sarah walked in. She looked tired.
‘Where have you been?’ I asked.
‘At work.’
‘Sarah, did no one tell you it’s Saturday?’
‘Very funny. It’s been so busy lately, I’ve been catching up with paperwork.’
‘You work too hard.’
‘One of us has to.’
‘Thanks, Sarah. Look, all I’m saying is that you work long hours during the week and now you’re working Saturdays as well. We all need time off, not just me.’
‘I know, Ru. I don’t love going to work at a weekend, but I’m building my career, you know me. Perhaps you could do with a bit more of what I have.’
‘Sarah, I’m happy at Fulhurst’s. Really, I don’t want another job. I thought you’d be pleased.’
‘Well, I am, sort of. I’m pleased you’ve settled down but, then again, the only reason you like it is because you don’t have to work very hard and you’ve got Katie, not because you’ve found something you like doing.’
‘OK, so those are the reasons, but you know I don’t want a career and I know you all hoped I’d change my mind, but I knew I wouldn’t. I’m just happy the way I am with a great social life.’
‘Do you really enjoy your social life?’
‘Of course I do,’ I lied.
‘So you don’t find it boring and shallow?’
‘No,’ I lied again.
‘And neither does Katie?’
‘No. Anyway, I thought you liked Katie.’
‘I do, she’s great. But I know you, and don’t forget you’ve catalogued the awful men you’ve been meeting lately. I just don’t think it’s making you that happy.’
‘Sarah, it’s making me happier than I’ve been in a long time and that’s good enough for me. I don’t want a career. How many times do I have to say that?’
‘OK, calm down. I hope you’re happy, you know that.’ Sarah left me and I knew she was right, although I’d never tell her that. I knew I wasn’t happy. I still hadn’t come close to finding what I was looking for.
The next week I stayed in. I caught up on the soaps, spent time with Sarah, Sophie and Jess, and tidied my room. I remembered when I never went out, how I saw this house as my confinement. Now I felt safe within its walls. It was nice to stop for a while. Katie understood: she said that every now and again she took time out and stayed in. I just hadn’t seen her do it. I thought perhaps I might do it a bit more often.
***
It was the weekend before my birthday and I had promised my parents that I would take Katie home with me. I was looking forward to it, a weekend of being fed, pampered, and seeing my parents: I missed them.
We took the train on Friday evening. Katie seemed excited. As we settled into an overcrowded carriage I picked up a magazine and she started reading her book. After a short while the grey buildings of London became green fields, trees, hedges.
‘Wow,’ Katie said.
I put my magazine down. ‘What?’ I asked.
Just look, Ru. Christ, it’s so beautiful.’
I looked, I really looked, and she was right, it was beautiful. Katie abandoned her book and craned her neck. It’s amazing how special something can be when you’ve seen it a thousand times before. We smiled at each other. Patchwork fields, cows, forests, lakes. Katie kept her eyes glued to the scenery until we got there. I watched and saw things I’d seen so many times before but had never really seen. I caught her awe and liked having found something great I could share with Katie.
‘I’m quite looking forward to seeing how a normal family works,’ she said.
‘I’d hardly call my family normal,’ I replied, but they were. Well, if normal meant good, loving, kind and stable they were.
Katie smiled, ‘Any family that doesn’t drive you away is good enough for me.’
She said it with no bitterness in her voice, but again I felt sad for her. ‘I’m sorry.’ I didn’t know what else to say.
‘Don’t be. I came to terms with my family a long time ago. Anyway, I’m looking forward to meeting yours.’
Both my parents had come to the station and we were greeted with hugs and kisses.
‘Mum, Dad, this is Katie.’
‘Hello, Mr and Mrs Butler,’ Katie said.
‘Oh, no, please call us Theresa and Stuart,’ my mother replied.
‘I’ve missed you, princess,’ my father said, and my eyes filled with tears.
‘You look really well,’ my mother said, stroking my hair.
They had decided to take us out to dinner before heading home, so we went to my favourite Chinese restaurant. Katie was asking millions of questions in the car, how long had we lived here, where my father worked and could she see my mother’s shop. Like my friends, within seconds my parents were mesmerised.
‘You must need a rest, you girls, after working so hard in London,’ my father said.
‘Yes, we do work quite hard, but I don’t mind,’ Katie said.
I stopped myself laughing. My father told her about how he had started out in London in a firm of accountants. It’s funny, but when I had that job with the accountancy firm, I had never thought of my father as one of them. I suppose that’s because he’s a nice one. Then my mother told Katie how she and my father had met at a dance, and how it had been love at first sight, which made me want to cry for some reason. We had dinner, which was lovely, and Katie told my parents about her love of art, carefully eluding any questions from my mother about her family. When we got home, I fell into bed exhausted.
On Saturday I woke early and spent some time on my own with my parents. They didn’t ask me about my career or my life, they just chatted, which we hadn’t done in a long time. My father told me about a new housing development they objected to; my mother told me how well her charity was going. I told them about Jess, Sarah, Sophie and Thomas, whom they knew and loved. It felt more like home than ever. ‘
I woke Katie and we had breakfast.
‘I don’t remember the last time someone cooked breakfast for me. It’s fantastic,’ Katie said, and she got extra bacon.
After breakfast we went for a drive. I showed Katie my old school, the town I used to hang out in, the pub
where I had my first pint and the fish and chip shop where I received my first proper kiss. It was funny because I was showing her my life and I hadn’t shown anyone before. Not even Ben had known this much about me. I drove to my mother’s shop, but she wasn’t there. Barbara, a woman who had worked for her forever, welcomed us. She told Katie how she hadn’t seen me for years. I guess it was a while since I’d taken an interest. I told Katie how, when I was little, I had spent hours in the shop, loving the dresses, and how I always said it was my favourite place in the world. It was lovely to take that trip down Memory Lane. We had lunch in the pub then headed home.
There we flopped in front of the television and just relaxed.
‘You know, we must be mad. We go out all the time but this is the life. How about we move to a village outside London and live like this?’ Katie suggested.
‘OK, so we grow our own vegetables and get a cow, do we?’
‘Why not?’
‘And you wouldn’t ever get remotely bored? Even though there are no men for miles around?’
‘We’d just have to get a couple of farmhands to double as gigolos.’
That wasn’t a bad idea, and we laughed.
‘Maybe I would get bored, but it’s peaceful. I haven’t felt peaceful in a long time.’
Saturday night my mother cooked dinner and we all chatted. Katie had become part of the family easily, and it was funny to see how she took to being a daughter. She loved asking my mother questions and she loved listening to my father’s jokes. I felt sad for her that she didn’t have a family she could do this with. Before we left on Sunday, my parents gave me some presents and a card and made me promise not to open them until my birthday.
Rubber Gloves or Jimmy Choos? Page 24
