A Minor Indiscretion (12 page)

T
he street Christian lives in is very posh. Which sort of surprises me. I don't know why. I suppose I expected scruffy, student-style digs, but this is no such thing. You'd be pushed to find anywhere to live in this area unless you had about half a million quid sitting in your back pocket. Particularly since the area shot to fame in the film
Notting Hill.
Hugh Grant has made a lot of property owners round here very happy.

It's a quiet, narrow street just behind Notting Hill Gate Tube station, lined with tall copper beech trees which will soon outgrow their limited space. The houses are mostly well-kept chichi terraces painted in hopeful Mediterranean shades of pink, yellow and cloudless-sky blue. In this tungsten-lit downpour they look as I feel, a little washed out and pasty. They all have iron railings, ornate wrought-iron porches and window boxes overflowing with daffodils and spring bulbs. Some of the houses have roof terraces, a desirable commodity in any London street. Their exotic blooms reach toward the moon and are buffeted by the rain against the skyline for their pains. On the street are parked the type of cars that little boys dream of. Don't ask me what they are. I only care if my car starts in the morning and, at a push, what color it is. But you know the sort I mean. Flashy red things and long silver ones and soft tops that purr along and turn impressionable heads.

I marry the number on the card, which is now more than a little soggy at the edges, with the number on the front door. And double-check the address just to make sure this really is where Christian lives. I feel a knot of apprehension tightening within me and sigh out my breath like they told us to do at prenatal classes, which was just as useless during childbirth as it is now.

Christian's house is a little shabbier than the rest, and that makes me feel slightly relieved. The window box seems to be bearing the remnants of last year's geraniums, and they're probably the only things round here grateful for the deluge of water. There are two bicycles chained to the railings, and the bin at the bottom of the basement steps is overflowing with rubbish. One of the neighborhood cats is enjoying what appears to be the remains of Chicken Chow Mein from a foil carton. The front door is purple and ornately carved, but on close inspection the paint is cracked and peeling.

A slight frisson of fear creeps over my scalp as I wonder if Christian lives here with his parents and hasn't dared to confess, knowing how uncool that is? Before I can turn and run away, I press the doorbell, but hear no comforting ring on the other side.

I wait and get wetter and realize that this could probably be considered the worst night of my life to date. I'm clutching my pathetic little suitcase like some overgrown version of Paddington Bear and seething quietly. Like Jemma's, there doesn't appear to be a light on in the house, and it seems reasonable to assume that Christian has gone to bed. I'm sure if the doorbell worked, he'd be here by now. I press it again and stand a bit nearer to the door under the inadequate but attractive shelter of the overhanging porch. A few minutes pass, and I resort to twanging the letter box, convinced that the doorbell has died.

As I do, a girl opens the door, rubbing sleep from her eyes. She's wearing a silky slip and nothing else. Do you remember me telling you about Caroline Gregory? She of the Gary Eccleston saga? Bitch sex kitten of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour High School? Remember? Well, her doppelganger is standing right in front of me.

I quickly check the address, fearing that the splat of rain might have impaired my reading (my glasses are also in my handbag) and that I've got some totally unconnected sex kitten out of bed in the middle of the night. She looks blankly at me. As well she might.

“Hi,” I say and push back my flat, wet, corkscrew hair so that I might appear marginally less like a madwoman. “I'm looking for Christian Winter.”

Her eyes widen, despite her sleepy state. “Chris?”

“Yes.”

“He's out.”

There's a lengthy pause in which one of us ought to say something, but neither of us does. She, possibly because she is half-asleep and dazed. Me, because by this point I'm totally brain dead. The girl yawns and stretches, and I feel I must say something before she's tempted to close the door.

“I wonder if I could possibly wait for him?” I say. “If it's not inconvenient.”

Her look says,
Of course it's inconvenient, it's one o'clock in the fucking morning!
She comes out of her sleepy state, folds her arms across her chest and eyes me suspiciously.

Well, would you let me into your house in the dead of night looking like this? “It's important.”

“Are you his mother?”

“No.” I look bad, but not that bad! “I'm a friend. He may not have mentioned me,” I say with studied patience. Why should he? “My name's Ali. Alicia.”

The sex kitten looks horrorstruck, and her eyes travel from my hair to my shoes and back again in slow motion. “
You're
Ali?”

“Yes.”

“Shit,” she mutters, and stands aside. “You'd better come in.”

I do. I step inside this rather grand house in this rather posh street and, as I follow her through to the hall, try not to drip on what looks like expensive carpet. The sex kitten pads in her bare feet through to a huge kitchen, which in my disorientated state looks the size of ten football pitches. And I wonder who on earth she might be.

I put my case down on the tiles, which won't matter too much if they get wet, and sidle self-consciously across to the kitchen table. I can't believe I'm sitting here. I know so little about Christian. Who is this? She can't be his sister, even if he has one, because she'd have recognized her own mother on her doorstep even in the dead of the night. Does he share the house with other people? Why hadn't I considered that? What on earth did we talk about all day? Did I slip into typical doting mother mode and rattle on about my kids for hours?

“Tea?” she asks, picking up the kettle.

“If it's not too much trouble.”

She says nothing, but I gather that it is rather a lot of trouble and that her hospitality is somewhat forced. But I try to put myself in her position. She'll probably kill Christian tomorrow. I sit in silence while the kettle takes an age to boil and she makes just one mug of tea.

The girl puts the steaming hot mug on the stripped pine table in front of me, seemingly unaware or uncaring of the fact that it will leave a white scorch mark in the wood. “Thank you.”

Never in all my life have I been so grateful to see a cup of tea. I nurse my hands round it and realize that they're as cold as ice. A towel would be nice to dry myself down, but I'm not offered one, and as I've already intruded so much, I wouldn't dare to ask.

“I'm Rebecca,” the girl says. “Christian and I share this place.” She looks dismissively at the grand kitchen. “We're…old friends.”

It's a loaded statement and contains a warning. And if I hadn't left my sense of humor back at home in my handbag too, I might have found it amusing that this perfectly formed sylph could feel threatened by someone who currently looks like something the cat dragged in.

Rebecca doesn't sit down with me, but leans against the Aga and scrutinizes me. “You're not what I expected.”

How am I supposed to answer that? I have no idea what, if anything, Christian has said about me, but presumably, from the look on her face, she expected some little glamour puss, not someone she'd consider ready to collect her bus pass. I have a horrible thought. I was probably at the very peak of my groovy hot-pants phase somewhere around the time that Christian and this young miss were born. I say nothing and concern myself with the job of drinking tea in an effort to thaw out my frozen insides.

“What are you doing here?” she asks, glancing at the clock to make sure I'm aware what time it is.

“I'm not really sure,” I answer, truthfully. I don't want to tell this stranger about my row with Ed and how I've been tramping the streets because he's being childish and unreasonable. Mainly due to the fact I'm about to cry.

She rubs her bare arms against the chill of the night air, and I can feel myself start to shiver inside.

“What time do you think Christian will be home?” I ask timidly.

Rebecca snorts. “Who knows? Christian is a law unto himself—but then I expect you know that.” I see a slight smile curl on her lips when my face clearly registers that I don't. “He's gone out on the razz with Robbie, the other guy who lives here. They may not come back at all.” There is a challenge in her eyes. My mother would call her a “little madam.”

“I'll drink this and be out of your way,” I say, swallowing the tea without tasting it.

“Stay,” she says with a shrug. “If that's what you want. If you're not in a rush to get home.”

“Would you mind?” Again the indifferent shrug.

“I'm off to bed.” She stifles a yawn. “You can have Chris's bed, I guess. Or camp down on the sofa. It's up to you.”

“I'll just wait here,” I say.

“Suit yourself.”

“Thanks, Rebecca.” I smile at her. “You've been very kind.” And she has, in her own way. She has taken me into her home despite not knowing me from Adam, and obviously convinced I'm far too old and gnarled for Christian. And I'm inside in the dry and the warm, although the atmosphere has a decidedly chilly edge. If this is the alternative to a cardboard box, I'll take it.

“If you decide to leave,” she adds as she walks out of the room, “don't bang the door. I'm a light sleeper.”

I smile at her retreating back, her rigidly set shoulders and her pert little bottom. Wriggling down in the hard-backed chair, I try to make myself more comfortable for what could be a long wait.

She glances back one more time. “I hear everything.”

And I'm quite sure she makes it her job to.

T
he hammering at the front door took several minutes to permeate through the fug of Ed's subconscious and rouse him into waking. He sat bolt upright and realized that Elliott had long since departed the bed. Thomas, still pale and interesting, slept on. Pulling on his dressing gown, Ed briefly entertained the thought that the insistent pounding might be Ali come home without her key, but he would recognize the thud of that fist anywhere. Ed peered out of the window and, sure enough, Neil's motorbike was haphazardly abandoned in the drive in the style that his brother termed “parking.”

“Oh shit,” Ed mumbled, and headed downstairs.

Elliott was sitting in the lounge watching
Postman Pat
with the headphones on. “Uncle Neil's been hammering at the door for the last ten minutes!” Ed reproached him.

Elliott raised his headphones. “What?”

“Never mind.” Ed yanked open the front door.

Neil stood there grinning, with his crash helmet tucked under his arms. His smile faded. “You look like rancid dog shit, bro.”

“Thank you,” Ed said, standing aside while he walked past. “I also feel like it.”

Ed followed his brother, who looked like a funky young dude in leather, into the kitchen. Neil put down his helmet and was al-
ready filling the kettle. “You need coffee,” he said. “Strong and black.”

Tanya leant on the door frame.

“Who is this gorgeous creature?” Neil asked.

Tanya blushed. The gorgeous creature was a foot deep in foundation and floating in a cloud of Ali's perfume, Ed noted. She fluttered her eyelids. “Hi, Uncle Neil.” She turned to Ed and the flutter froze. “You look like you've been drinking, Dad,” she accused.

“I haven't,” Ed said. But I wish I had, he added silently.

“Where's Mum?”

Ed avoided looking at anyone. “She's still at Jemma's.”

“The sickie clothes need to go in the wash.”

“Can't you do it?”

“I'm spending the day with Hannah Cooper. We're going to Brighton.
Now.
Mum was supposed to make me sandwiches.”

“I don't suppose she had the time,” Ed reasoned. “And you're fifteen years old and perfectly capable of making your own sandwiches.”

Tanya opened the fridge and stared sulkily at its contents. “I don't like anything we've got in. I'm a vegetarian.”

“Since when?”

“Since today.”

Ed sighed. “Neil. Have you got a tenner?” Neil searched in his leathers and produced a ten-pound note. He gave it to Ed who gave it to Tanya. “Buy yourself a soya burger.”

Tanya smiled and kissed him. “Thanks, Dad. I don't know when I'll be back.”

“It's a recurring theme in this house,” Ed muttered, and his daughter slammed the front door.

Neil put a strong black coffee that looked like it could eat through the mug in front of him. “I owe you ten quid, mate,” Ed said.

“I'll put it on the slate with all the others,” Neil remarked as he tentatively tasted his coffee. “Has Jemma got another man crisis then?”

“No.”

Neil pursed his lips. “Girlie night out?”

“No.”

“Anything you're likely to share with me?”

Ed folded his arms and leaned on the counter. “She's left me.”

“Who?”

“Catherine Zeta Jones. She said she preferred Michael Douglas all along.”

“What?” Neil looked very puzzled.

Ed huffed in a way that showed extreme exasperation. “Alicia. Who do you think? Alicia has left me!”

“No, no, no. Bro, bro, bro!”

“She has.”

“Never.”

Ed indicated the otherwise-empty kitchen.

“When?”

“Last night.”

“Why?”

“What is this, Twenty Questions?” Ed snapped.

“You can't just casually announce that your wife of blah, blah years has left you and expect me not to want to know the nitty-gritty. Ed, if this is true, it's serious.”

“I don't really think you need to remind me of that.”

“So…”

“So she packed a case and left.”

“Why?”

“Because I asked her to.”

“She's left you because you asked her to?”

“That about sums it up,” Ed said.

“Are you mad?”

It was something he had considered in the last twelve hours. “She's seeing someone else.”

“Ali?” Neil grimaced. “When?”

“I don't know.”

“Ali doesn't have the time. She's too busy looking after you lot.”

It was also something that had crossed his mind.

“How long has it been going on?”

“I don't know.”

“Who is it?”

“I don't know that either,” Ed admitted.

Neil frowned. “Oh, I see you've discussed this very thoroughly.”

“They've been to Kew Gardens together.”

“Oh, that old hotbed of lust!”

“You're my brother, you're supposed to be on my side!”

“I would be if you hadn't developed bollocks for brains!” Neil strode across the kitchen and leaned in front of Ed. “You think she's having an affair, but you don't know quite how she manages to find time for it, you don't know how long it's been going on and you don't know who with. But you think that's sufficient reason to ask her to leave. So she's packed a bag and gone to Jemma's.”

Ed nibbled his thumbnail. “Do you think I was a bit hasty?”

“Oh, for fuck's sake,” Neil said.

“I'd had a really bad day, mate.”

“And they'll get a lot worse if you don't apologize soon.” Neil ushered him toward the door. “Get dressed. Go on—get dressed. With a bit of luck I might be able to get you round there before they get up and have hatched a cunning plan to exact their revenge on you. This could cost you dear, bro. We are talking Caribbean cruise here, mate.”

“New bedroom furniture and the decorators in,” Ed countered, but he looked more cheerful.

“Whatever,” Neil said. “Now. Get dressed. Get your checkbook and let's get round there, before she decides you're a complete twat and refuses to come back.”