‘Isn’t a baby a big family occasion?’
‘Normally, yes,’ Aishe admitted. ‘But Patrick married outside the clan, and I suspect his wife prefers to keep her Gyppo in-laws at arms length.’
‘From what Darrell’s told me, Patrick’s wife is gorgeous but somewhat fierce,’ Michelle said. ‘Darrell says she finds her a bit unnerving. She didn’t mention the Gypsy thing being an issue, though. Perhaps they just forgot to let you know? First baby tends to drive most things out of your head.’
‘Perhaps.’ Aishe gave a quick, dismissive shrug. ‘I don’t know her. I suppose I should give her the benefit of the doubt.’ Her lips tightened. ‘She can’t be any worse than the women my pussy-whipped oldest brothers are married to. Stupid, fat cows with delusions of respectability. The kind that breed obese, retarded children that they insist are God’s gift.’
Michelle blew out a breath. ‘You know, I’d prefer to hang out with that kind of woman than the ones I’m surrounded by now. Present company excepted.’
Aishe raised an eyebrow. ‘What kind are they?’
Michelle described the women at her mother’s group and, after a brief skin-crawling hesitation, Chad’s colleagues’ wives.
‘SBMs,’ Aishe informed her. ‘Skinny Blonde Moms. Marin is rife with them.’
‘I don’t think any of the corpse brides live in Marin,’ said Michelle. ‘I got the feeling Marin was a bit downmarket for them.’
‘I know the type,’ said Aishe. ‘We’ve got some seriously rich people in Marin, but that’s new money, and some people hate the thought of looking like parvenus. They want to live in Seacliff, Pacific Heights — where the old established families hang out, if you know what I mean. The closest thing Americans have to real nobs.’
‘I do know what you mean,’ said Michelle, without thinking. ‘That’s exactly the kind of family I married into.’
Aishe’s sudden look of interest galvanised her with alarm. The last thing Michelle wanted to do right now was talk about her marriage. Or her in-laws. Or anything even remotely connected to either. The memory of the rest of the work dinner, the next day, and the week and a half since, was still raw and humiliating and appalling. Michelle found her breathing becoming shallow with panic at the mere flash of it. The memory was like a hideous, tentacled monster trapped in a box, and if she didn’t slam the lid down tight every time it threatened to escape, it would leap out and suffocate her.
She could see Aishe’s question forming and was searching frantically for a distraction when the front door of Aishe’s tiny house crashed open. A childish chatter and babble flooded Michelle with relief.
Gulliver came up to the kitchen doorway, holding Harry by the hand. Tentative until he saw his mother, Harry beamed and ran around the table towards her. Michelle helped him scramble up into her lap.
‘Mommy-mommy-guess-what-I-went-on-the-swing!’ Harry was beside himself with glee.
Michelle bounced him on her knee. ‘You did?’ She glanced up to include Gulliver in the next question. ‘How’d that happen?’
Gulliver shrugged. ‘I taught him to push himself. That way he can go just as high as he likes.’
Michelle found herself unexpectedly taken aback. ‘Wow,’ she said with genuine admiration. ‘What a smart kid you are.’
Gulliver immediately lowered his eyes and Michelle saw a faint blush creep over the back of his neck.
‘Sorry,’ said Michelle. ‘I shouldn’t call you a kid.’
‘Call him dude!’ Harry suggested loudly and started to squirm with the giggles.
‘Hmm,’ said his mother, setting him down on the floor again. ‘No more sugar for you.’
Another figure came into view through the doorway, a tall, very thin and very blond young man, in whose arms, to Michelle’s surprise and alarm, was Rosie.
‘Shit!’ she exclaimed. ‘I thought she was asleep in her stroller. Who are you?’
‘Benedict Hardy.’ The young man smiled. ‘Don’t panic. Known to the family. Not a serial killer.’
The voice was also a surprise. English public school, guessed Michelle. What on earth was he doing here? What, she thought, were any of us doing here?
‘I saw this disreputable lot at the playground and joined them,’ the young man continued. He jiggled Rosie, who emitted a happy gurgle. ‘She’s not terribly keen on her pushchair, is she?’
Michelle came round to relieve him of his burden. But as she put out her arms, Rosie’s brow darkened and she let out a shriek of protest.
‘Jesus,’ said Aishe. ‘That’s some set of lungs.’
Michelle gave her daughter a baleful stare. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Go home with a man you’ve only just met. See if I care.’
She took a step backwards and immediately Rosie lunged forward with an impatient squeal. Benedict only just managed to keep hold of her.
‘Sorry about that,’ said Michelle, as she lifted her daughter from his arms. ‘She’s a pill. A contrary menace.’
The young man smiled, and Michelle realised that on top of being thin and blond, he was also really rather good-looking. She glanced down at Aishe and saw that she was viewing the young man with barely disguised distaste. She doesn’t like him at all, Michelle noted with interest. Why not? He seems all right. Polite, cute, good with children — what’s not to like?
Gulliver, who had been rummaging in the refrigerator for the last few minutes, silently handed Benedict a soda. Michelle saw Benedict give him a meaningful stare and nod in her direction.
Gulliver said, ‘Um, do you want one, too? I mean—’ He blushed. ‘Can I offer you a soda?’
‘Smoothly done,’ Benedict murmured.
Michelle smiled. ‘No, thank you.’
‘Can—?’ Harry began, eagerly.
‘Nope.’
‘Aw-but-Mommy-but—’
‘No!’ Michelle firmly cut off her son in mid-wheedle. ‘It’s almost lunchtime. You can have a juice when we get home.’
Harry began to utter a whinging yodel, which he accompanied with flailing arms. Rosie, who never liked to miss out, also began to yell.
‘And there we have it,’ said Michelle. ‘Melt down o’clock. Time to go.’
‘I’ll help you with your stuff.’ Aishe jumped up and grabbed Michelle’s baby bag. Without an ‘excuse me’ or any kind of acknowledgement, she pushed past Benedict in the doorway.
Benedict stepped aside to let Michelle through. ‘Goodbye.’ He reached out a finger and chucked Rosie’s cheek. She rewarded him with a beaming smile and a glimpse of her first teeth.
‘Don’t put your finger anywhere near those,’ Michelle warned. ‘She bites like a bastard.’
‘Duly noted,’ he said, and gave her an amused glance.
Wow, thought Michelle. He really is good-looking. Beautiful smoky green eyes. Fabulous full mouth …
Mentally, she gave herself a slapping. Let’s not go down that track, she warned. Not even in her head. She was in enough freaking trouble as it was.
She glanced behind for Harry, and found Gulliver had taken hold of his hand to lead him to the front door. Harry was staring up at his companion with the worshipful awe he usually reserved for Daddy. Michelle smiled and ushered up a small prayer of thanks that Gulliver was the kind of teen who did not think small children were carriers of that fatal disease Uncool.
She found Aishe had already hitched the baby bag to the stroller.
‘Thanks,’ Michelle said, deftly strapping down a squirming Rosie. ‘You must be glad you don’t have all this palaver any more. I feel like a cross between a pack mule and a ferret wrangler.’
An odd expression flitted across Aishe’s face. But then she gave a wry smile. ‘Yeah, it’s amazing the amount of crap you have to tote around when they’re little.’ She glanced back towards her son. ‘Now the only equipment he requires is an iPod. And he can carry that himself. Most of the time.’
Aishe and Gulliver stood in the doorway to wave them off. Michelle glanced behind for Benedi
ct, but he must have stayed in the kitchen. She was intrigued to find out the reason behind the look Aishe had given him. But that could wait.
‘Thanks for having us,’ she said instead. She nodded at Gulliver. ‘And thanks for taking them to the playground. What do you say to Gulliver, Harry?’
Harry beamed. ‘Dude!’ he shouted.
‘Close enough.’
‘Thanks for coming,’ Aishe said to her. ‘Maybe, we could—’ She hesitated, as if such invitations did not come naturally to her. ‘Maybe we could go out for a drink later in the week?’
Michelle suppressed a shudder. No. Never. She would never drink again. But the thought of an evening out — with someone she could talk to, someone she wouldn’t want to garrotte — had significant appeal. She needn’t drink alcohol, she reasoned. She could stick to lime and soda, or Virgin Marys, or whatever is the least revolting teetotal concoction on offer.
‘That’d be great,’ she said. ‘Can Gulliver babysit?’
‘Yay! Yes! Yay!’ Harry jumped up and down and clapped his hands.
Gulliver lifted his shoulders. ‘Sure. OK.’
‘YAY!’
‘Yes, yes, yay.’ Michelle reached for her son’s hand. ‘Come along, groupie-boy. It’s time for lunch.’
Aishe watched them walk off. Gulliver stayed with her for a minute before sloping off back inside. Gone to join his main man, thought Aishe bitterly. She waited until Michelle had rounded the corner up the road then, in a dark mood she was neither able nor willing to explain, she shut the door and headed back to the kitchen.
It did not help her mood one bit to find only Benedict there, nor to hear him say, with a wistful half-smile, ‘Your new friend is a perfect thirties movie star. Louise Brooks hair, and the rest of her pure Clara Bow.’
Aishe wrenched open a cupboard to get a plate and slammed it shut again. ‘Like them fat, do you?’
‘Oh, come on!’ Benedict protested. ‘She’s hardly fat. Bigger than you, yes — but you’re the size of my thumb. And besides, you are hardly one to talk.’
Aishe paused and slowly lowered the baguette she’d retrieved from the bread basket. ‘What do you mean?’
Benedict’s expression was that of an Allied soldier who had just worked out, ten feet too late, the translation of Achtung Minen.
‘Nothing. I meant nothing.’
‘Yes, you did.’ Aishe’s voice dropped to an ominous purr. ‘What was it?’
Then she twigged. ‘Oh. Right.’ She dumped the baguette on the plate and began to rip it open. ‘You mean Frank.’
Benedict was wary, but she did not appear to be offended.
‘I’m sorry you lost him,’ he said. ‘He clearly meant a great deal to you.’
Aishe shoved lettuce and a slice of cheese into the baguette and lifted it. She watched him over the top of it. ‘If you think insincere platitudes like that are going to make me talk to you about him, you can think again.’
‘If you think everything that comes out of my mouth is bullshit,’ Benedict retorted, ‘then why do you employ me to teach your son?’
‘Because I can’t afford a real teacher.’ Aishe took a firm bite.
‘Well, then,’ said Benedict. ‘Why don’t I just quit?’
Aishe took her time to chew and swallow. ‘Because you can’t afford to,’ she added. ‘You can use that as an example of irony in your next English lesson.’
Benedict stared at her.
‘What would it take,’ he said, ‘for you to stop being a complete bitch to me?’
Aishe found the question gave her pause for thought. Until recently, she would have had no compunction about being, as he put it, a complete bitch. It served a purpose, which was to keep at bay people she did not like. But lately, the familiar shape of her life seemed to have shifted and changed. There were people in it where before there had been none — and she had let them in reasonably willingly.
Michelle was the first person since Frank whom Aishe had considered could become a friend. And with Michelle had come threads of connections to family that Aishe thought she had cut for good. Aishe still found this deeply threatening, but as long as she limited the contact to Anselo, she should be safe enough.
And Aishe had noticed a slight modification in her behaviour. She quite enjoyed Michelle’s company and she wouldn’t mind, after all this time, having a conversation with Anselo. With those two at least, Aishe felt as if she could allow herself to mellow — just a little. But could she — should she — do the same with Benedict? He was proving himself more reliable than she’d ever imagined, and she was troubled by a growing sense that her complete assassination of his character was, just maybe, a little unfair.
However, there was so much about him that still set her on high alert. Her suspicious instincts still clicked and buzzed like a Geiger counter near an evil cadre’s stash of plutonium. And, let’s face it, Aishe decided, Benedict’s admiration of Michelle was clear proof that something in him was fundamentally wrong.
Aishe scowled. ‘Why do you care what I think of you anyway?’
Benedict blinked and looked away. She could see his chest rising and falling with quickened breathing, as if he had to gird himself to reply.
‘Because,’ he said, meeting her eye, ‘it would be nice to have one ally in this world.’
The baguette in Aishe’s hand suddenly seemed unappetising, and she dropped it back onto the plate. His answer had been vastly more honest than she’d expected, and she did not enjoy how uncomfortable that made her feel.
‘Why me?’ she said after a pause. ‘Why would I make a good ally?’
He smiled briefly. ‘Don’t you think we have a lot in common?’
Surprised, Aishe herself also gave an honest answer. ‘I’ve never thought about it.’ She frowned. ‘But I don’t see that we do. We’re both English, but that’s about it.’
‘You accused me of being all about evasion.’ Benedict’s expression was embarrassed but resolute. ‘And you were right. I am. I ran away ten years ago, and I’ve been running ever since. Who am I running from? My family. Does that not sound familiar?’
‘Well—’
‘Mum’s not running away.’
Startled, the pair in the kitchen turned towards the doorway. Gulliver was there, standing with arms at his sides but a few inches out from his body. He looked as if he was preparing to fight, or draw two six-shooters from their holsters.
‘Isn’t she?’ said Benedict.
Gulliver shook his head. ‘You only need to run away if they’re chasing you. And Mum’s family stopped chasing her years ago, didn’t they?’
Aishe was not at all sure where this was heading, but her instinct was to tread carefully.
‘They finally decided to respect the fact that I wanted to be left alone,’ she said.
Gulliver stared at his mother. ‘And now we are, aren’t we? We’re all alone. Just you and me.’
‘What’s up, bud?’ said his mother softly. ‘What’s brought all this on?’ She had a sudden insight. ‘Did you email your uncle?’
Gulliver nodded. ‘He just emailed back. He said it was nice to hear from me. He said to say hello to you.’
‘And?’
‘And nothing!’ Gulliver snapped. His hands drove downwards, fingers accusing the floor. ‘That was it. Nice. And hello. After fourteen fucking years!’
‘Gull—’
‘I’m nothing to them!’ he yelled. ‘Because now you’re nothing to them. You never asked if I wanted no family. But you did it anyway because that’s what you wanted. No family! Just you and me.’
‘That’s not fair, Gulliver. If Frank hadn’t died—’
‘He’d have been your husband. Frank only mattered to you!’
‘That’s not fair.’ The words fell clumsily out of numb lips.
Gulliver was still breathing hard, but this time he didn’t yell. ‘And how fair have you been to me? I have no dad. I have no family. I’m nothing. I’m nobody. Because that’s what you wa
nted.’
He shot a glance at Benedict that managed to be both aggressive and apologetic. ‘I’m not studying today. I’m going out.’
And he went, unhooking his sweatshirt from the banister on the way.
Aishe found her knees weren’t as stable as they had been and she sat down heavily in the nearest chair. Hand over her mouth, she stared at the closed front door.
It was a while before Benedict spoke. ‘Have your family really excommunicated you?’
Aishe shook her head. ‘I hadn’t thought so. But, maybe—’
‘Maybe?’
‘Maybe they got fed up with waiting.’
Aishe felt the prick of tears and blinked them away furiously. She would not cry. She wouldn’t.
‘Worth asking?’ said Benedict. ‘For his sake?’
‘What do you care?’ Aishe snapped, her eyes still on the door. ‘You’ll be here today, gone tomorrow.’
She heard the scrape of a chair as Benedict pulled out the one next to her.
‘I’m tired of running,’ he said. ‘It’s been almost ten years. If I stop, I’ll be caught. Not immediately, but eventually. I know that. But I’m tired.’
Despite herself, Aishe turned towards him. ‘What will happen if they catch you?’
‘They?’ Benedict shook his head. ‘No they. Only he.’
‘Who? Brother? Uncle? Father—?’
Benedict nodded.
‘Father,’ said Aishe. ‘What will he do if he catches you?’
‘You know what?’ Benedict replied after a moment. ‘After all this time, I’m no longer sure.’
12
Michelle knew that if she wanted to talk to Chad, it was best to grab him directly after Harry and Rosie had been put to bed. Apart from the vengeful screams from Rosie’s room, which would eventually die down, she and Chad would not be interrupted. The trick was to time it before he succumbed to the torpor that overtook him on the rare evenings he spent at home. To do that, she had to intercept him before he made it to the couch. Once he was settled there, she might as well try to talk to the couch itself.
Her strategy this evening was a simple one — block the living-room doorway. Chad, coming beer in hand from the kitchen, saw her and pulled up short. He waited, warily, for her to speak.
The Not So Perfect Life of Mo Lawrence Page 10
