Don't You Want Me? (27 page)

‘Why are you being such a downer? You know nothing about it. OK, you live with him. But you weren’t there the other night. You don’t know how he looked at me.’

‘Louisa, try and listen to what I’m saying. God, I really fancy a cigarette. Do you have any?’ She pushes a packet across the table. ‘Thanks. I know quite enough about him, thank you. I know that there’s some strange woman … that there’s some strange woman in his bed two or three times a week – never the same one twice, as far as I can make out. I know that the answering machine is filled with messages like the ones you left this weekend. And I know that he doesn’t give a fuck. He wipes them off. Erases them, Lou, and never thinks about them again. He thinks that he’s honest, that he goes into these things honestly, that he never pretends to be more interested than he is, and never makes promises he can’t keep. And so he thinks that if some woman wants to misinterpret that “honesty”, as he’d see it, then that’s her problem.’

Louisa is looking at me, not very lovingly.

‘Are you saying that he’s never, ever fallen in love, or ever had a long-term relationship?’

‘No. I know that he has.’

‘Well, then!’ she says triumphantly. ‘If he’s capable of falling in love, why shouldn’t he fall in love with me?’

I’m just not getting across – and perhaps that’s because I don’t really want to. Everything I am telling Louisa, after all, could apply equally to me, which fact sickens me a little bit. My heart isn’t in this conversation, and I’m achingly aware that my motives are lacking somewhat on the nobility front. Perhaps I’d be better off just coming out with it, just telling her – but I don’t have the stomach for that, either. I make a superhuman effort to persevere with Plan A.

‘You know that look that people get when they’re in bed with you, that look in their eyes?’

‘Yes,’ says Louisa dreamily.

‘Frank had it, right? The look that says, “You are a goddess and I love you madly.” ’

‘Yes,’ says Louisa, looking me straight in the eyes. ‘He had that look.’

I swallow. ‘Well, Lou, here’s the thing, here’s some news. All men get that look. They could be in bed with a, a donkey, and for a few seconds they’d still give that look.’

‘You are very cynical,’ says Louisa. ‘That’s not true.’

‘No,’ I concede. ‘Sometimes the look is for real. But maybe a handful of times in a lifetime.’

‘I don’t understand what your problem is,’ says Louisa, but is it my imagination, or is she sounding a tiny bit less convinced? ‘I
know
that he and I are right for each other, even if he doesn’t. Yet. And really, Stella, you ought to be happy for me. What’s the matter with you? I thought
you were my friend. What’s with the prophet of doom stuff?’

‘I’m just warning you, that’s all. You were a notch on his bedpost.’

‘Yes? Well, maybe the bedpost is full up and there was only space for one more notch, and I was it. The last notch. Why are you looking at me like that?’

‘Nothing,’ I shrug. ‘Maybe. Maybe you’re right.’

‘I’ve got to go,’ says Lou, looking at her watch. ‘Could you send him my love? My best love?’

‘Sure.’

‘And see you at playgroup, yes?’ She gets up. ‘Thanks for all your advice, Stella. We’ll see. You do probably have a point, you know.’

‘I know.’

‘Maybe I’m jumping the gun a bit.’

‘Maybe.’

Louisa laughs. ‘There’s just something about him … Still, I’m going to go home and have a think.’ She bends down to kiss me. ‘I’ll ring you. Bye, darling.’

I think that possibly, possibly the penny has dropped. It’ll be a long descent, but the penny has dropped. I really hope it has, because I don’t know what I’d do otherwise. If I thought about it for too long, I’d feel so sickened by myself, I’d have to take to my bed for six months. But I’m not going to think about it any more. Not today. Tomorrow, as Ms O’Hara so correctly said. Tomorrow.

Honey and I are wrapped in a quilt, watching Maisy videos, when he comes home.

‘Hey,’ he says, touching my face. ‘Hot lady. Grrr.’

‘Oi girl,’ says Honey, whose vocabulary is slowly
expanding. ‘Oi mouse,’ she adds, just to confuse me. ‘Loike Maisy.’

‘Hello, Maisy,’ says Frank, stroking her hair.

‘Nice day at the office, dear?’

‘Excellent day. Brilliant day. Spoke to Dom, and guess what? Guess what, Stell? He’s only bloody gone and got me a show in New York next April.’

‘Frank, that’s brilliant. I’m so pleased.
So
pleased for you. Will you, er … Nothing. Do you want a drink?’

‘Will I what? Yes, do you? I’ll get you one.’ He goes into the kitchen humming ‘Hey, Big Spender’ and reappears two seconds later with two glasses of red. We’re turning into alcoholics. ‘Top gallery,’ he says, naming one.

‘Cheers,’ I say. ‘Chin-chin. Bottoms up. Very many congratulations. That’s fabulous, it really is.’

‘It is, you know. It’s just the best thing.’

‘How is Dom?’

‘Asked after you, actually. Well, he always does.’

‘You didn’t tell him.…’

‘No. I had the feeling he might not like it.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind. It’s just that … well, too much information, really.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, will you go to New York?’

‘Yeah, in the spring.’

‘What … to live?’

‘Just for a couple of months.’

‘Oh, right.’

Frank looks at me. I look at Frank. Nobody says anything.

I had a coffee with Louisa today.’

‘Yeah?’

‘I was going to tell her, and then I changed my mind. It made me feel sick, Frank. So I told her you were a sort of priapic monster, and that she shouldn’t bother with you.’

Frank laughs. ‘A priapic monster?’

‘Yes. Permanently, you know, ready. For it. With anyone.’

Frank smiles. I wish he wouldn’t smile at me like that. It would really help.

‘You sacrificed my reputation, you mean,’ he says, still smiling.

‘I sullied your pristine name. Yes. I’m sorry. I didn’t know what else to do. And besides, I wasn’t exactly lying.’

He shrugs. ‘So, what did she say? Louisa.’

‘She really likes you. She thinks you’re her boyfriend.’

‘Yeah? Why’s that, then?’

‘Because you slept with her, maybe, idiot-head.’

‘I vass only obeyink orrders,’ he says.

‘What orders?’

‘Yours, love.’

‘
I
didn’t order you to sleep with her!’

‘Funny,’ says Frank. ‘I thought that was exactly what you did. Pushed us together. Bit baffling, Stell.’

‘Anyway, now she thinks you’re an item.’

He looks completely uninterested. This is awful, obviously, but it makes me very, very happy.

‘Frankie, you might at least pretend to care. For God’s sake. You did
sleep
with her.’

‘Sleepies,’ says Honey.

‘I do care. I care that you’re still friends. You are, I hope?’

‘I don’t know, Frank. I can’t imagine she’s exactly going to whoop with joy and crack open the champagne when
she finds out what really went on. And it’s going to have to come from me – I’m going to have to tell her, sooner or later. Sooner, probably. I feel like such a bitch.’

‘Let’s not think about it now,’ says Frank. ‘And stop wincing. She’s a big girl. She’ll get over it.’

‘She was imagining herself more or less engaged to you.’

‘Silly her, then,’ says Frank. ‘I went out of my way to give her the very opposite of that impression. I always do.’

I sigh massively. ‘Anyway. Do you want some food? I couldn’t be bothered to cook. I was going to get a takeaway. Or are you going out?’

‘Out?’ says Frank.

‘Yes, you know. Outside. The great outdoors. The outside world.
Là-bas
.’

‘No,’ says Frank. ‘No, I wasn’t going out.’

We watch Maisy at the swimming baths. Her swimming costume is stripy, with a hole for the tail.

‘Do you want me to go out?’ says Frank.

‘If you like.’

‘Would you
rather
I went out?’

‘It’s up to you. I meant, don’t stay on my account. If you want to go out, then go out.’

‘I see,’ says Frank. ‘OK.’

‘About last night …’

‘And the night before,’ he says. I wish he wouldn’t give me those looks – they make me die.

‘I … we … I’m not expecting … you don’t have to … You’re a free man, Frankie.’

‘When’s Honey going to bed?’ Frank asks.

‘In a minute.’

‘Shall I take her up?’

‘No, let her finish watching this one.’

‘OK. You were saying?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake. I was trying to be
subtle
, Frank. What I was trying to say is, it’s OK. I don’t expect us to start going out. It was really great, but I don’t want it to feel awkward between us, and so I was saying, if you want to go out, then go out. With everything that implies.’

‘You want me to bring strange girls home?’

‘If you want to.’
No no no
.

‘What, as in threesomes?’ he laughs. ‘Blimey.’

‘No! Not as in threesomes. As in sexual partners for you.’ I can hear my voice, and it sounds very hard. I don’t mean it to. But I can’t lie in my real voice.

‘For you,’ says Honey.

‘But …’ Frank has stopped laughing. His face is pale and tight.

‘That’s all I was saying. Come on, Honey, bed. Sleepies.’

‘Stella!’

‘In a minute,’ I say, already halfway up the stairs. Now, I think to myself as I tuck Honey in. Now. I’m going to ask him now, about his daughter and his daughter’s mother and why his loveliness doesn’t extend to them. Now.

But when I come back down, he’s gone.

Twenty minutes later, the door goes. He must have forgotten his keys.

‘Thank God,’ I say as I open the door.

‘Hello,’ says Mary. Am I late, pet?’

‘Hello, Mary. Er, no. You’re not late at all. In fact …’ What’s she doing here?

Mary scoots past me and takes off her coat.

‘Brass monkeys,’ she shivers. ‘Now, is my Honey still up?’

‘She’s asleep. Er, Mary?’

‘Look at you,’ says Mary. ‘Still in your scruffy old house clothes. It’s already quarter to nine – you should really go and get ready. I’ve brought my things in case you wanted me to stay the night again.’

‘I … I think you made a mistake, Mary. No baby-sitting tonight.’

‘Oh, yes,’ says Mary. ‘Francis said. Rang this afternoon. About five-ish. Taking you to dinner, to some French place, to celebrate something or other, he said. I know it’s not really any of my business,’ she continues, ‘but are you …’

‘No,’ I reply, rather dazed. ‘We’re not.’ Oh, no,
no
. Frank was taking me out to dinner to celebrate his American exhibition and I basically took down my trousers, bent over and crapped all over his evening. Oh, God. I swallow hard. It stings behind my eyes.

‘Only his mam asks after him such a lot, and I like to keep her up to date. You and Francis seem to get on so well …’

‘Yes,’ I murmur. ‘Yes, we do.’

‘It’s just he’s a grown man now, thirty-five, and she frets about him having a family, you know. Finding the time for it, what with all the fuss they make of him down here. I don’t like those cows much, though, do you? Now the dolphin, there’s a nice animal.’

‘Mary, he’s not here,’ I say. I feel dazed; I can’t think straight. ‘I’m so sorry. I think you’d better go home.’

‘Aah, he’ll turn up. Men are always late,’ she says cosily, heading for the kitchen. ‘Cup of tea, Mrs Midhurst?’

‘No thanks. Look, I really don’t think he’s coming. I’ll call you a taxi to take you home.’

‘Don’t be so silly. I’ll just settle myself down here, and you go and have a nice hot bath. Go on! Off with you.’

‘I, er, OK.’ Mary in capable mode can be very persuasive.

I’ve no sooner got into the bath, like an obedient child, than I get out again, spraying slidey water everywhere and practically breaking my leg in the process. What was all that business about Frank’s mother worrying that Frank was forgetting about having a family? What was that?

‘Mary,’ I shout, racing down the stairs in my kimono.

‘Mrs Midhurst!’ she says, coming into the hall. ‘You’ll catch your death.’

‘Stella, please. I’ve asked you a thousand times.’

‘You’re a bad girl, Stella. What is it, pet?’

‘Frank. Francis.’

‘Yes?’ she says, blinking helpfully.

‘How well do you know him?’

‘Francis? Oh, I’ve known him since he was a child.’

‘Yes, yes, of course. I knew that.’

‘I’ll tell you all about it one day, if you like. Only – ’ she looks at her watch – ‘you’re going to be very late if you don’t get a move on.’

‘Now, Mary, tell me now.’

‘Well, all right. But you’ll catch …’

‘Never mind about that.’

‘What would you like to know?’ asks Mary, with the true gossip lover’s glint in her eye.

‘How? How do you know him?’

‘His mam and I are old, old friends,’ she says. ‘Back home. We were at school together. And my eldest, Andrew, was at school with Francis. Isn’t that nice?’

‘Yes, yes, that’s lovely.’

‘It is,’ agrees Mary. ‘Was there anything else? Only I’m watching such an interesting programme. About fish, you know. Strange beasts, they are, this lot, with huge teeth. I didn’t think a fish could have very big teeth, did you? Or a hen,’ she adds pensively.

‘Hens? No. Fish, I’m not sure. Look, I know this sounds odd, but what I really need to know – please, Mary, it’s important – is whether Frankie – Francis – was … well behaved. Before he came to London. Was he good, Mary? Did he …’

‘Oh, no,’ says Mary, shaking her head sadly. ‘He was a very bad boy. Broke his mam’s heart.’

That feeling comes again – that empty, drained, I’ve-been-weeping-for-days feeling. I push it away and sit down on the stairs.

‘He was always naughty,’ she says. ‘Always. From childhood. Always in trouble. But kind, you know, to his mam
and to his brothers and sisters. Do you know,’ she says, ‘I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but he sends money home every month.’

‘That’s very sweet,’ I agree. I feel like there’s a wasp buzzing about inside my head. ‘But you said he broke his mother’s heart.’

‘Oh, yes,’ says Mary cheerily. ‘She was very upset when he said he was moving to London. She relied on him, you see. For everything. What with her husband dead. So she was in pieces. She cried for days and begged him not to go. She’s all right now, though. Never happier. She does make a fuss,’ Mary chuckles affectionately. ‘Loves a drama, that one.’