Confessions of a Serial Dater (5 page)

But I do firmly believe that dishwashers should come with the warning “Do not under any circumstances whatsoever attempt to wash horticultural features in me,” just to make it abundantly clear to people like my mother, whom I love dearly, but whom I also suspect inhabits a parallel universe, that garden gnomes should be consigned to the garden.

After Carmen’s rather shocking advice (which, no, I am definitely not going to take) and Jess’s more sensible advice (which I think I
am
going to take), and after elbowing my way through the Saturday morning chaos of Portobello Road market (otherwise known as Shopping with the World and His Wife), and chewing the fat about my forthcoming dinner
with Jonathan tonight, because we always go somewhere nice for dinner on Saturday nights, and what the hell am I going to say to him, and what the hell is he going to say to me, I finally reach the sanctity of my house. And finally check my telephone messages.

All ten of them are from my mother.

Not a single one of them is from Jonathan.

But before I can worry about Jonathan’s silence, or wonder what new tizz my mother has got herself into, the telephone rings, and it’s my mother.

“Darling, thank God you’re not dead,” is her opening remark. I’m pretty ecstatic not to be dead, too, but I don’t say this, because my mother doesn’t give me the chance.

“Where were you? We’ve been so worried. You’ve been incommunicado since yesterday, and I’ve been calling and calling on your home phone and your cell phone,” she panics down the line at me.

“Sorry, Mum,” I sigh. Because I
am
sorry. I truly don’t mean to worry her, but it doesn’t take much to get her going. She’s turned it into an art form. “I told you yesterday that I had to go to—”

“Yes, but you should have called me when you got home. You could have been mugged by a drug trafficker on Lad-broke Grove, or dragged into Kensington Gardens by a serial rapist,” she says, building up to a crescendo of horrification.

This picture of doom and desperation is in direct relation to her belief that the only safe place in London to live is Hampstead, where she lives, and her desire for me to sell my nice little house and move back in with her and Granny Elsie.

Yet again, I thank God for the housing trust that got me onto the first rung of the ladder of home ownership. Six years ago, after a year of residence in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, as it is so grandly called, I was able
to take part in a shared ownership scheme for young (and therefore unrich) singles. It was only one room, plus a small bathroom and kitchen area, but it was mine. And came with a huge reduction, thanks to the housing trust.

I also thank God for the bequest that Granddad Mayford left to me, which enabled me to sell the studio apartment two years ago (at an astonishing profit) and plough all my money into my partnership in Odd Jobs and a huge mortgage for my sweet little terraced cottage. My haven of calm and serenity.

“Please calm—”
down,
I don’t say, because Mum is barely pausing for breath.

“I nearly called the police to report you missing, but Granny Elsie said that you can’t report a missing person until they’ve been missing for at least twenty-four hours. She heard it on
Crime Watch
.”

Thank heaven for Granny Elsie,
I think, rubbing my temple as it begins to throb in a familiar way.

“But darling, you have to come over
right now,
” Mum tells me, her voice hitting a peak of panic. “Granny Elsie stuck Percy’s head to her hand with the superglue, and we can’t get him off.”

Or maybe not…

Percy, I should tell you, is one of Granny Elsie’s vast collection of garden gnomes. And Granny Elsie, although inexplicably potty about her garden gnomes (much to the horror of half of the posh residents of Mum’s Hampstead address), does not have the steadiest of hands when it comes to fixing things with superglue. She does not have the greatest eyesight, either.

“How did it happen?” I sigh, because there is always a tale to tell.

“The
why
doesn’t matter now,” Mum says very quickly, and
I know that she is somehow responsible for Percy’s current predicament.

“It was putting him in the hot cycle in the dishwasher as did it,” Granny Elsie pipes up in the background, and my temple throbs even more. “I told you, Sandra. Didn’t I tell you it should have been the cold cycle?”

“Shush, Mother,” my mother tells her. And then to me, “The
how
we get Granny unstuck is the only thing that’s important.”

“You put Percy in the dishwasher?”

“Well, he was dirty, and I didn’t want him in the kitchen sink, did I? Everyone knows the dishwasher is more hygienic.”

I don’t bother pointing out that she’s not exactly planning on eating off Percy and that a quick sluice down with the garden hose would have been just as effective. This will only add to her arsenal of weapons in the Why I Should Move Home war.

“Have you tried soapy water? Or nail varnish remover?” I ask, remembering Jennifer Lopez’s nifty little trick in
The Wedding Planner,
where she removes a statue’s testicles from Matthew McConaughey’s hand. See, you learn so many things from movies. Thinking of Matthew McConaughey makes me think of doctors, which leads me inexorably back to Dr. Love…

“She needs hospital treatment,” my mother insists, building up to another panic. And before I can tell her not to get carried away by a flight of fancy, I get carried away by one of my own.

It ambushes my brain, and before common sense can overcome its surprise at being hijacked in such a way, and ruthlessly squash my flight of fancy, I’m off and running. In fantasy land.

I’m in the hospital with Granny Elsie for emergency Percy removal. Of course, I’m wearing the gorgeous, unsensible, red crushed-velvet top I saw in Carmen’s vintage clothing store last week, which, although I craved, I dismissed as too revealing. I’m also wearing tight, sexy, distressed jeans, which I also saw in her store and didn’t buy, but which turn me into a sex goddess. My hair is glossy and immaculate, and in between the dash from Mum’s house to the hospital, I’ve found time to apply full makeup.

I’ve just settled Granny Elsie in her cubicle and am making reassuring noises of comfort to her when the privacy curtains part. And there he is. Dr. Love.

The harsh hospital lighting dims to a romantic glow. “Sweet Mystery of Life, at Last I’ve Found You,” plays in the background with full orchestra, because, of course, my astonishing daydream comes complete with sound effects.

Dr. Love is instantly smitten by my sexy, glowing persona, combined with caring, granddaughterly concern. He’s a bit haggard, but in a sexy, rumpled kind of way because, apart from delivering Baby Woodbridge, he spent the night fraught with regret that he didn’t obtain my name or my telephone number, thinking he’d never see me again and had lost his chance of One True Love.

“Darling, you’re so much better at this kind of thing than me,” my mother’s pathos-laden voice interrupts my daydream, just as Dr. Love has taken me into his arms and is about to
kiss
me.

I kill the daydream.

I would never use Granny Elsie in such a way. And besides, there are so many hospitals in London that the chance of me ending up in Dr. Love’s is, well, just not going to happen. Not that I want anything to happen, of course I don’t.

“I don’t know how we manage without you,” Mum says,
and I can hear the tears building in her voice. “It would be so lovely to
see
you,” she says plaintively.

She saw me yesterday, but pointing this out will only lead to a further diatribe about being old and alone in this world, and what a comfort children should be to their poor, widowed mothers, even though she is only fifty-four and has Granny Elsie for company.

I concede this round and fortify myself to do battle with the chaos that is the Northern Line.

Better just call Jonathan first…I take a deep breath and dial his number.

“You’re such a comfort to your poor, widowed mother,” Mum tells me two hours later, after I have successfully removed Percy’s head from Granny Elsie’s hand, glued his head back on his body, placed him in his familiar spot in the garden with all the other gnomes, and rinsed down all the other gnomes with the garden hose to avoid further disasters.

And discovered the unpaid phone bill.

Inexplicably, the thought of hitting my head repeatedly against a brick wall is very tempting….

“Mum, you have to stay on top of things,” I say, checking through the heaps of papers on the kitchen table. “This is a final warning.”

“I know, I know, dear. I, er, just forgot. How about a nice mince pie?” She deftly changes the subject, whisking the pack out of the cupboard and placing it on the cluttered table.

Odd that she worries so about the cleanliness of the garden gnomes. She doesn’t have the same feelings about the tidiness of the kitchen, that’s for sure.

“They’re from Marks & Spencer—your favorites.”

“But I set it up as a direct debit from your bank account so you wouldn’t have to worry about stuff like this.” Such as the gas bill, too, it suddenly occurs to me.

After Dad died just over a year ago, I went through all the financial details with her. Apart from the Hampstead house, there is also a monthly pension and a government widow’s pension. It’s not a huge amount, but enough to cover bills and property taxes and leave her with enough money to spend on herself. And Granny Elsie contributes to the bills.

“December is such a busy month, all that shopping to do—I’m just a bit overextended at the bank until next month,” Mum tells me, a bit flustered as she pours boiling water into the teapot. “I just—canceled it for this month, you know, to give me a bit of extra cash for Christmas.”

“It doesn’t work like that.” I close my eyes. Mum and financial affairs are not a match made in heaven. “You can’t just not pay a bill for one month, then catch up the next. I’m guessing here—call it a wild stab in the dark if you like—but maybe that’s why the energy company got so upset yesterday.”

I don’t suggest that she sell the house and move somewhere cheaper and smaller, thereby setting herself up with a
nice lump sum to live off. We’ve gone that route before, and she just can’t bear to leave the house she’s lived in all her married life. I do understand, but am concerned that she’s getting even flakier.

“I just wanted to buy you a nice Christmas present,” she says, spilling milk on the side as she pours it into the cups. I know she means well, but this is another ploy to enforce mother guilt on me.

“Why don’t I see what part-time jobs I’ve got on the agency books?” I ask her for the millionth time. “I’m sure I’ve got something that would suit you. It would, you know—get you out and about and meeting people, and give you a bit of extra cash.”

“Your father never held with working wives,” she tells
me
for the millionth time as she purses her lips. Dad was a bit old-fashioned, but I think he meant working wives with small children, rather than working wives in general.

“But I’m sure Dad would—” I grope for the right words. It’s hard, because she still misses him so much. So do I.

“It’s a full-time job just keeping this house going and looking after Granny Elsie,” she says, her voice quavering as she gesticulates at the clutter. And then she makes a quick recovery and says cheerily, “You know, the basement’s so lovely and light and spacious. Plenty of room for one—or even two—people. With a bit of work, it could be transformed into a completely separate apartment, with its own front door and everything.”

This is not a new idea. This is the same idea she comes up with oh, say, once a month. I suddenly yearn for Jonathan’s understanding smile and easygoing, uncomplicated company.

“Ooh, you didn’t tell me you’d got Marks and Sparks pies.” Granny Elsie, a small, rotund, perfumed vision in lilac polyester, wanders into the kitchen and grabs one from the pack.

Saved by the octogenarian with the pink rinse, I think, because Mum’s next line would be that the basement would be perfect for me. And for me and
Jonathan
after the wedding, which my mother assumes will be the next logical step.

I do try to understand her, I really do. She really loved my dad. He was her whole life. He took care of her, and they did
everything
together. And although I don’t want to spend my life alone, I don’t want to end up like my mother, either. I just couldn’t stand such a claustrophobic arrangement.

In that moment, I am certain about what I am going to do. I’m going to forget all about handsome, tempting doctors and concentrate on my unclaustrophobic relationship with dear Jonathan.

Jonathan certainly isn’t the claustrophobic type, that’s for sure. He wasn’t home when I called earlier. I left a message, but he hasn’t called me back. At least, not on my cell phone. Or my mother’s phone, and I know he has the number, because I told him in the message—just in case.

“Mother, are you wearing the old girdle?” my mother asks. Granny Elsie, it has to be said, has dangling body parts. But at least it’s distracted Mum from her basement crusade. “Your bits are hanging out everywhere. And down.”

“I can’t wear the new one you got me, Sandra. It squashes my intestines, and I need plenty of room down there so’s I can eat plenty at dinner,” Granny Elsie says, shoveling the rest of the mince pie into her mouth and taking another.

“That old thing’s a disgrace—it’s full of holes.” Mum is indignant. And she’s also right. Granny Elsie’s old girdle is not something you want to see dangling from the clothesline amidst the clusters of gnomes.

“All the more easy for, you know”—Granny Elsie crinkles her already crinkled face into a lascivious grin—“accessibility.”

I’m so glad she shared that with me. My grandmother’s sex
life is just the picture I need in my head. Thinking of sex lives reminds me that I’d better go home and get ready for tonight.

I’m really going to talk things through with Jonathan. But I don’t think he needs to know about the kiss. After all, we’re not married yet, and it was only a kiss. But what a kiss…

“Mother!” my mother shakes her head. “Please.”

“I’m having dinner with my new gentleman friend.” Granny Elsie digs me in the ribs with her elbow. “He’s a bit crinkly, is Alf, but at my age beggars can’t be choosers. Speaking of sex,” she cackles, and her false teeth slip a bit. “Did your mother tell you about the Immaculate Conception and How We Should All Come Together As a Family to Celebrate the Wondrous News?”

“Why are you speaking in capital letters?” I ask Granny Elsie, because it sounds like she’s implying that Mum has joined a religious cult.

“Your cousin Elaine’s pregnant,” my mother sniffs, and I nearly faint on the spot. “She’s going to be one of them single parents.”

“You’re kidding me,” I say, sitting down on a kitchen chair. On top of the mound of clean, folded washing also inhabiting the chair, but I barely notice, such is my surprise.

Elaine is not one of my favorite people, and to be honest, if she weren’t family then I would strike her forever from my Christmas card list. Or re-gift her with something horrible and used that I don’t want, because that’s exactly what she does to me.

Except for last Christmas, of course, but that was by accident. She gave me the Body Shop gift basket I’d bought her the year previously, but it backfired on her, because I happen to love Body Shop stuff, and I enthused about it all evening at length, because it really pissed her off. And although I
don’t make a habit of pissing people off, I make an exception for Elaine.

But pregnant? This will probably mean that I have to be nice to her. I can’t imagine how Auntie Pat’s taking this, though—think of her social standing at the Women’s Institute!

“What did Auntie Pat say?”

“Apparently, yer Auntie Pat and Uncle Bill are as pleased as punch—they’re even throwing this year’s Christmas Party in her honor,” Granny Elsie says, hitching up her panty hose. “It’s not just family this time around—they’re invitin’ everyone they know.”

I’m shocked that Aunt Patricia (or “Auntie Pat” as we call her, to annoy her) is taking this so well. She comes from a very grand old family with failing fortunes (although she lowered herself to marry Uncle Bill because, we suspect, of his self-made fortune). She’s always had very grandiose ideas about people’s situations in the grand scheme. Particularly her own.

“Yer cousin Elaine called and invited me personally,” Granny Elsie adds, slurping her tea to wash down the mince pie.

Elaine called Granny Elsie personally? I’m trying to imagine Granny Elsie in Auntie Pat and Uncle Bill’s house on Hampstead Heath. It is immaculate and full of expensive things that make you scared to touch anything. I’m also trying to imagine Elaine being nice, but it’s just not gelling.

Uncle Bill’s my dad’s brother, so Granny Elsie isn’t, strictly speaking, related to that side of the family. And Auntie Pat usually ignores her existence.

“I know yer Auntie Pat don’t like me. I know she thinks I lower the tone,” Granny Elsie adds.

“I don’t know where you got that idea,” Mum says rather
dryly. “Of course, it could be the old corset. Mother, I do wish you’d wear the new one. And your new teeth.” But before she can launch into one of her diatribes, something odd happens. Mum’s whole face shifts gear into a huge smile.

“Oh, but I haven’t got a thing to wear to the party. I shall have to get something new,” she says, her eyes lighting up. “You’ll have to have something new, too, Mother.”

“I’m all fixed up.” Granny Elsie heads for the door. “I’m wearin’ me red-and-green stripy number with the black flowers, because it’s festive.”

I grin, because Granny Elsie in that dress is a sight to behold. Auntie Pat’s going to hate it.

“Plus,” Granny Elsie winks at me from the kitchen door, “it’ll really irritate your Auntie Pat. Now I’ve got to go and touch up me makeup. I’m due at Café Rouge in ten.”

“I bet you could do with a nice new dress, Rosie. Call it a little extra Christmas present especially from me. Let’s plan a girly shopping trip.”

“But—”

I am about to remind her about money, and how she’s overspending, but I stop when I see her overdue MasterCard statement on the floor under the table. The total is only twenty-five pounds, but it does have to be paid.

“Mum, what’s this?” I ask rhetorically, waving it at her.

“Oh, that?” She snatches it from my hand. “It’s just—a little something extra I bought for you, dear,” she squints at it. “It was from one of those shopping channels, and I had to use a credit card because it’s just easier with a credit card on the phone, isn’t it?”

“Mum,” I say, just a bit wearily. “We need to have a chat about all these unpaid bills.”

“Don’t be such a killjoy, darling, I just want you to have a lovely time,” she tells me, sniffing indignantly. “You know—
just like it used to be when Daddy…oh, darling, remember all those lovely times when we were all together.” She pulls a tissue from her pocket and dabs at her eyes.

“Mum,” I say gently, touching her arm.

“Now then, dear,” Mum says, straightening briskly. “Can you stay for dinner? How about I rustle you up something nice to eat?”

I manage to drag myself away because my mother has grand ideas for Jonathan and me and approves of the fact that I am having dinner with him. At least I think I am. He still hasn’t returned my call…

But I only escaped after promising my mother to come for lunch the next day as a thank-you for my insistence on paying the telephone and MasterCard bill (despite the fact that I nearly always go for lunch on Sundays), writing checks for both bills and mailing them on my way back to the Northern line.

As the tube roars through the bowels of London, I worry about Mum. I mean, she’s always lived in her own little world, even before Dad died, but I think she’s getting worse.

Also, I’m still completely stunned about Elaine. I can’t believe that holier-than-thou, cannot-put-a-step-wrong-in-everyone’s-eyes, Goody Two-shoes Elaine is pregnant. I climb off the Northern line tube and head through the deep passageways toward the Central line.

And what’s more, she won’t say who the father is. Probably because she can’t remember, I think evilly.

Elaine is tiny, petite, has small, narrow feet (of course) and looks like a China doll in a beautiful, fragile, butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth kind of way. Unfortunately, she has the heart of Chucky and always wants what other people (i.e., me) have.

When I was ten, I really, really wanted a pony for Christmas. I yearned for one with all my Barbie-and-My-Little-Pony-adoring soul. Yes, I know now that ponies are expensive and require (a) a stable, because they cannot live in the basement apartment of a Hampstead house, which was what I planned, and (b) plenty of space to run around in—not a small garden like ours. Although I promised to take Candy (yes, I’d already chosen a name for my perfect pony) for extensive walks on Hampstead Heath every day. As I said, I was ten, and the world was a wonderful, hopeful place.

Elaine knew all about my pony longing, because she threatened to bite the head off my Princess Aurora Barbie if I didn’t show her my letter to Santa.

Needless to say, she got her very own pony that same Christmas. And I tried to be happy for her, I truly did. And I was more than happy with the toy horse I got for Princess Barbie to ride. I was even happy to clean out Candy’s stall (yes, Elaine even stole the name) for months, because Elaine let me have a weekly ride on her. It was almost like having my very own Candy…

Until I turned up one day to clean out Candy’s stall and she’d gone. Elaine took great delight in telling me that Candy had been sold because Candy loved me more than Elaine, and no one was allowed to love me more than Elaine.

I should have kept my mouth shut and let the bitch bite off Princess Aurora’s head.

Yes, I know it’s childish to hold a grudge for eighteen years, I think, as I exit the station at Holland Park and head toward home, but Candy wasn’t the last love Elaine stole from me.

I’ll never forget the humiliating scene at my twenty-first birthday party. The scene where I go to my parents’ bedroom to find Auntie Lizzie’s coat and instead I find dear
Elaine showing Harry, my then boyfriend, her blow-job skills…