A Minor Indiscretion (28 page)

E
lliott, Thomas and Tanya sat on the floor in Thomas's bedroom. The Scalectrix, the Game Boys and Harry Potter had been cleared away to under the bed, and the children faced each other in a tight circle. Tanya twiddled her fingers in what she assumed to be an expert way and then licked her tongue wetly along the cigarette paper. The boys looked on in rapt awe.

“So,” she asked, “which one of the new other halves do we like best? If any.”

“I like them all,” Elliott piped up.

“That's because you're a lamebrain,” his sister snarled.

“It takes one to know one,” he retorted. Tanya kicked out at him.

“We want our parents to get back together, don't we?”

“Why?” Elliott said.

“Because that's how it's supposed to be, idiot.”

“All my friends' parents are divorced,” Thomas said.

“Yes,” Tanya sighed, “but that doesn't mean they know what's good for them. You know what adults are like. What do you think?”

Thomas shrugged. “I like Christian. He's pretty cool.”

“He's an arsehole,” Tanya said. “I can't stand the way he drools all over Mum.”

“I thought that's what boyfriends were supposed to do,” Elliott said.

Tanya narrowed her eyes. “Not when they're that age! It's revolting.”

“He can't be that bad.” Elliott nodded at the cigarette papers. “He showed you how to do that.”

“He didn't show me,” Tanya snapped. “I sort of copied him,” she added more softly, admiring her handiwork from all angles.

“I like Nicola Jones too,” Thomas continued, unperturbed.

“I think she might be too demanding.” Elliott lay back on his Bob the Builder pillow, which adorned the floor, and wrinkled his forehead in concern. “And she has a lot of hair. It must take her ages to get ready.”

“Mummy's got lots of hair too,” Thomas said. “And she doesn't do anything to it.”

“That's because she's a mummy, not a girlfriend,” Elliott said wisely.

“Oh,” Thomas said, bowing to his younger brother's greater knowledge of the female sex.

 

Ed let himself in the front door and tossed the
Independent
onto the phone table. The worst thing about coming home since Ali had left was that the house didn't feel like a home anymore. No one was here to greet him and ask him if he'd had a good day, even, it had to be said, if he didn't always feel like responding. When the kids were around, they barely looked up from the table or, if they were parked in front of
All My Children,
he didn't get a look in, just lots of shushing.

Dumping his briefcase, he wandered through to the kitchen and flicked on the kettle. He might have a bath before dinner, if you could call Cheddar Cheese Crispy Pancakes and a packet of Super Noodles dinner. His back hurt and his head hurt, but they were nothing compared to his heart, which hurt grievously. Ali had sent a postcard to the kids from the Maldives, which he felt was rubbing salt into wounds somewhat, and he wasn't sure whether he was piqued or pleased that his name didn't even feature on it. He might forgo the tea route and head straight for the strong drink instead.

It also might help assuage his guilt over his newly promiscuous persona, which he wasn't entirely at ease with. He'd nipped into the men's room today and examined himself several times in case he'd developed some sort of rash. Nicola Jones had been
unconcerned that they had no protection when they made love, which was a bit scary considering how desperate she seemed for kids. Perhaps he should have told her that he'd had the snip and that the whole thing would be a bit of a wasted effort if she ever thought that he might be capable of procreation. It seemed so unnecessary to be using condoms if he was firing blanks, but if he was going to sleep around, as his brother laughingly termed it, he was going to have to be a bit more careful.

He wondered if Orla had been able to sense anything different about his demeanor, as he'd been trying very hard to remain normal and she usually didn't miss a trick. If she had, she didn't say anything. Ed massaged his temples. He couldn't cope with all these ifs, buts, whys and wherefores. It was all too taxing for someone as old and weary as himself.

Ed threw off his jacket. There was no television blaring out and the house was as silent as the grave, which couldn't possibly mean that by some stretch of the imagination his children were secreted away in the bedrooms doing homework, could it? Like England ever becoming a leading force again in Test cricket, it was too, too much to hope for. He would definitely have a bath. Perhaps he'd feel better for a brisk rubdown with some strong soap and a rough flannel. Ed stretched, cracked his neck and went in search of his offspring.

 

“Orla's scary,” Thomas said, propping himself up on his elbow.

“Scarier than Scary Spice?” Elliott wanted to know.

“Scary Spice isn't scary anymore, dipstick. She's a has-been.” Tanya let the smoke curl in front of her eyes and pouted her mouth to see if she could blow a smoke ring, which she couldn't.

“So why's Orville scary?” Elliott absentmindedly punched Barney the perky purple dinosaur in the face.

“Orla!” Tanya and Thomas corrected.

“Orla is a predatory female,” Tanya said with a grudging touch of admiration in her voice. “She is afraid of no one and nothing. She's like Sigourney Weaver. She's independent, single-minded.” Tanya pinned Elliott with her eyes. “She is a woman in control of her own destiny.”

“Well, that sounds nice,” Elliott said chirpily. “What's a destiny?”

Tanya rolled onto her back. “She'd make our lives hell.”

Elliott frowned. “That doesn't sound so nice.”

“Christian and Nicola Jones, we could control,” Tanya said with a wistful look. “Orla would squish us all like flies.”

“Then I don't think I want her to be our mummy,” Elliott said.

“No one can replace our mother, Elliott,” Tanya growled. “Don't ever forget that.”

“Okay,” he said with a shrug. His eyes followed Tanya's fingers longingly. “Give us a go.”

“No.”

Elliott pouted. “Christian said we had to share.”

“Christian doesn't know what he's talking about.”

“Oh, go on!”

Tanya huffed with exasperation. “How did I ever get landed with two manky brothers?”

She sat up and moved toward Elliott. “If you ever, ever tell anyone about this, Elliott, you are seriously dead meat. Get it?”

“Yes,” Elliott said, eyes bright and excited.

“What are you?”

“Dead meat,” he repeated obediently.

“You too, Tom.”

“Dead meat,” he echoed.

Tanya maneuvered her fingers. “Hold it like this,” she said.

At that moment the door flew open and Ed walked in. “Hi, kids,” he said, then ground to a premature halt in the doorway. His face blackened and his eyebrows met in the middle. “What the…!” he shouted.

I
am golden brown and looking gorgeous, even though I say it myself. I feel relaxed, lovely and lithe—though why the lithe bit I'm not sure, because I've eaten enough fish in the last two weeks to warrant growing gills myself and enough cake to have thighs of pure lard. I can't believe we're back from our holiday already, because it feels like we only just went. The pile of washing and ironing I'm ploughing through tells me that I am, well and truly, back.

The only strange thing about being in a sort of no-man's-land in terms of my abode, is that there wasn't the obligatory foot-high pile of bills and junk mail awaiting my return. It seems that in my absence not a single soul has missed me. However, it was two weeks of pure, unadulterated bliss, and I now feel ready to face all the flotsam and jetsam floating about in the murky sink that is my life.

With luck, Ed is also feeling fairly mellow, as I'm going to ask him if the children can come to stay at Christian's house for the entire weekend. What do you think about that? It's fairly tricky, this shared-custody thing. I don't want to put the arrangement on an official footing if I can help it because I think we're still both in denial about the actual nitty-gritty of what we're doing and we ought to be adult enough to sort it out between ourselves without running up solicitors' bills. Ed says that I can see the children at any time, but makes it clear that I am rationed just enough to
make it hurt. Staying overnight moves visitation rights onto a new level, and although I'm desperate to see more of the children, I'm trying not to think how this will facilitate his relationship with that Orville woman or Nicola Jones or whoever his current squeeze is, because for some reason that starts to turn me as green as a Halloween witch. Perversity, thy name is woman!

The children can have the beds in Robbie and Rebecca's rooms. This has been made feasible by the fact that Robbie is going home to Kent for the weekend, no doubt to scrounge off his parents, and Rebecca has met a
man
who is taking her sailing on his
yacht
for the
weekend.
And if we've heard about it once, we've heard about it a thousand times. It is possible to get the word “yacht” into almost any sentence if you try really hard. I am, in truth, genuinely very pleased for her, since she might now be moved to keep the smile that has been reaching from one ear to the other all week and not snarl around the house looking like she's sucked a lemon. Both she and Robbie have been very kind and have offered to tidy their rooms, and Robbie has vowed to hide his porno mags and take down his topless picture of Pamela Anderson, which is very thoughtful.

Christian is also being very chill about this. In fact, he suggested it. I think the day we spent at the fair was a ground-breaking day for him in coming to terms with me being a mother as well as a wanna-be Sex Kitten at Any Age. He's starting to appreciate some of the things that family life can offer: closeness, sharing, caring—along with the other benefits of poverty, squabbling and total lack of privacy. And it's also time for Elliott's next skateboarding lesson, as he was deemed not to have damaged himself nearly enough on his last outing—so clearly the boy wasn't trying. You won't begin to believe how pleased I am that Christian is starting to develop good relationships with the children. He no longer seems to view them with terror and actually looks forward to seeing them. Long may it continue!

I'm about to develop ironer's elbow, so I have a break and decide to phone Ed. No one else is in the house, and I am feeling a bit lonely. There's never anyone round here during the day, and Christian has gone back to Covent Garden to reclaim his pitch from his friend. I think, despite his grumbles about leaving me, that he was looking forward to it. I dial Ed's mobile and it occurs to me that we are in that twilight zone where we no longer know
each other's every movement. Our lives are becoming separated, not through any conscious effort, but by the natural passing of time. He answers after a few rings.

“Ed Kingston.” His voice, although abrupt and worklike, still thrills me. It's soft, mellow, deeper for some reason on the phone than in real life, sexy.

“It's Ali,” I say.

“Oh.” There is an uncomfortable pause. “You're back then?”

“Yes.”

“Good holiday?” It's said sharply, as if he can hardly bear to ask. But then, I shouldn't be surprised, I wasn't exactly overjoyed when he spent two days in Bath with Orville.

“Yes,” I reply, trying to keep a neutral tone. What else can I say? I can hardly rattle on about the dolphins and the sunsets, can I? And I think the bit about bonking in the sea is best left out too. “Thanks.”

Ed snorts.

“I wanted to talk to you about this weekend,” I continue briskly. “Had you made any plans with the children?”

I can hear Ed breathing. “Why?”

“I wanted to spend the whole weekend with them.” It comes out in a rush, as if I'm asking him a favor and not something that really is my right. “If that's okay with you.”

“I don't think that's going to be possible,” he says, and there is a harsh edge to his voice, all the mellowness gone.

“Oh?” I'm careful to moderate my own tone. “Would you like to explain why?”

“Not over the phone,” Ed says.

“I could come to see you.” I conjure up a relaxing vision of dolphins splashing playfully across the sunset in an attempt to curb my rising irritation. “Where are you?”

“In the office,” he says and I wonder if he has realized how much space now separates us. “Meet me at the Groucho Club,” Ed orders. “In an hour.”

“Fine,” I say. One benefit of living in Notting Hill is that it's only a handful of Tube stops into the thick of things. It's possibly the only benefit I can think of at the moment.

“Fine,” Ed says.

“Ed.” I suppress a sigh, an inch of my hard-earned relaxation ebbs away and my dolphins disappear beneath the waves. “We have to be sensible about these things.”

“Being sensible, Alicia, is the last thing you are qualified to speak about.” And, with that parting shot, the line goes dead.

 

The receptionist graciously allows me to wait in the bar area at the Groucho for Ed, after much persuasion. I've only been there for about two minutes, long enough to have found a sofa and sat myself down, but not much else, when Ed pushes through the door. He is looking tired and harassed. I've sort of dressed up. I'm not really at ease in these media-type surroundings. This place has such a reputation, but I'm not actually sure that it warrants it. Maybe it's just because I'm on the outside of this world, I don't know who the movers and shakers are, but to me they all look like overweight, middle-aged men drinking too much. It's just before the early evening rush and the place is relatively empty, apart from a few diehards propping up the bar. I've only been in this hallowed place a couple of times—once to the launch of a commercial for a new type of tampon which Ed did the advert for, and the only other time was for the one Christmas party where Wavelength partners were invited. It was at that party that I began to realize how often people's eyes glaze over when you tell them that you're a housewife, who stays at home all day to devote themselves to their husband and their children—which I did at the time. The whole thing was a stilted, uncomfortable disaster, and so they kept everything in-house from then on. Housewives were banned substances.

Ed sees me and does a slight double take. I hope it's because I'm looking so fabulously tanned and relaxed, but if it is he doesn't say so. He just throws himself in a heap on the sofa opposite me and sighs wearily.

“Drink?” he says by way of introduction.

“Mineral water.” I want him to remember me as a good mother. “Sparkling.” Like my wit.

Ed orders from a hovering waiter, and we don't say anything else until the drinks have been delivered. My husband takes a stress-relieving glug of his scotch. His eyes meet mine and I have no idea how to read them, but the expression on his face leaves me in no doubt that he's not a happy little chappie. “Let's get this over with, shall we?” he says, even though I've no idea what he's talking about.

Ed glances furtively round the bar, rather like an overacting Bond criminal. He opens his briefcase and rummages in its
depths. There is a black coffee table between us, marked with the sticky residue of drinks forming Olympic rings and bits of leftover peanut from lunchtime. In the middle of it Ed methodically places a small battered silver case, a cheap plastic cigarette lighter and some Rizla papers, slowly, slowly, one at a time. He pauses dramatically, clearly waiting for some form of recognition, and when he doesn't get it, he looks away from me, does the Bond criminal routine again and opens the lid of the silver case. He holds it out to me, eyes wide and questioning.

The case contains a squashed Old Holborn wrapper and a lump of brown goo, which may or may not be the earwax of someone desperately in need of a Q-tip.

“What?” I say.

“Oh, come on, Alicia!”

I want to laugh, but Ed is clearly taking this very seriously. “Come on, what?”

“Don't play the innocent with me.”

“Sorry, Ed.” I bite my lip so that I don't smile. “You're going to have to draw me a diagram.”

My husband scowls. “Oh, for goodness' sake!”

I examine the brown goo more closely. It could be an out-of-date bouillon cube. I pick it up and sniff it. It smells like a rancid bouillon cube.

“Put that down,” Ed hisses, looking round nervously.

I do as I'm told. “Why?”

Ed's face darkens until he is blending in with the black leather sofas. “It's puff,” he says. “Dope. Gear.
Shit.
”

I look at the inoffensive, if slightly grotty-looking brown earwax more closely. “Is it?”

“Oh, come on!”

“Stop saying that,” I snap. “The only puff I've ever got close to is Thomas's Ventolin inhaler.”

“Well, he's obviously moved on a little bit,” Ed snarls. “Last week when you were in the
Maldives
with your
toy boy,
I caught
your
children—Thomas, Tanya
and
Elliott—smoking this.”

“Thomas?” Now I did want to laugh.

“Yes, Thomas.” Ed is stony-faced.

Tanya I could understand—if her friends were doing it, then she would be right there at the front of the queue. Elliott too, despite the fact he's only four. If it's naughty, he's in on it. But
Thomas? Thomas would only consider smoking dope if Harry Potter did. And as far as I know, the bespectacled wizard isn't known for being a pothead. I sit here bemused until my anger kicks in. What has Ed been doing that they weren't properly supervised and could get themselves involved in drugs? I bet he was off…
canoodling
with one of his Misses Pretty Knickers.

“How do you know what it is, anyway?”

“I did go to college,” Ed says loftily.

“Oh.” That explains everything then. “And how did they get hold of it?”

“Really, Ali.” Ed snorts with disgust.

“What?” I wouldn't know where to go to buy drugs even if I wanted to, and I doubt my fifteen-year-old or my twelve-year-old—and certainly not my four-year-old—have been hanging round seedy East End pubs or talking to men in dark glasses in BMWs. And where did they get their money? Thomas and Elliott spend their pocket money on sweets, and Tanya single-handedly supports Bobbi Brown.

Ed sits back in his sofa, grim-faced. He needs a shave and his bristles are tipped with gray, making him look older than his years. “Christian gave it to them.”

“Christian?” I huff disbelievingly. “
My
Christian?”

My husband grinds his teeth. “Is there any other?”

I shake my head. “You're making this up.”

“Am I?” Ed looks drained.

“Who told you Christian had given it to them?”

“Thomas,” Ed says.

Thomas is pathologically incapable of telling lies, and I feel the blood drain out of all of my veins, leaving my insides empty, hollow, a vacuum.

“He gave it to them ‘for a laugh,'” my husband adds.

I want to say something, to reassure Ed that this is a terrible mistake, that this isn't dope or puff or
shit,
it's earth-tone Play-Doh or, indeed, a stale bouillon cube or a practical joke or something else other than cannabis resin that my children have been smoking, supplied by my lover. How would Christian have given it to them? He would have had to show them what to do, and he's never been alone with them except for the Sunday afternoon when I popped over to Jemma's…. Oh fuck.

The Sunday afternoon when I came back to find them all
stoned out of their heads and not just sleeping gently as I supposed. My stomach does a double somersault and I feel like I'm going to vomit, adding my own signature to the manky coffee table. How could Christian have done this? He wouldn't, surely? I can hardly breathe, I hurt so much. “I'll sort it out,” I say tightly. “Let me speak to Christian.”

Ed goes an even darker shade of black. “If I ever see him, I'm going to break his fucking neck, Alicia. You can tell him that from me. I haven't yet decided if I'm going to go to the police. I wanted to see what you had to say. But, Alicia, if it's up to me, neither you nor that bastard boyfriend of yours will be allowed within twenty miles of my children ever again. Do you understand?”

I shake my head, unable to take this in. “I'm sure there's been a mistake….” Even I don't think I sound convinced.

Ed stands up. “Are you?” he says. He snaps the silver case shut, taking his evidence with him. Case closed.