“If you want to come with me and Rosie next Sunday you can, you know.”
Next
Sunday. He’s definitely not coming back. I
knew
he wasn’t. All that stuff Mum came out with—"We’re just having a little time apart.” Parents are full of crap. I poke my fingers into my glass to pick out an ice cube to crunch.
“'m busy.”
“We could go bowling if you like. Or roller-blading? Fishing off the beach.”
I shrug.
He’s not coming back. I’ll be like Jason, going backwards and forwards between Mum and Dad like a ping-pong ball. Jason spends all weekend listening to his dad being snide about his mum, saying she’s sucking him dry of every penny he earns and why should he be paying anyway when she’s got Mr Wonderful with his suits and his fancy ties keeping her in the lap of luxury. Mr Wonderful’s Jason’s stepdad. Well, sort of, he hasn’t married Jason’s mum because she’s not divorced yet. Jason says Mr Wonderful isn’t wonderful but he’s not as bad as his dad says he is. But when Jason goes back to his mum’s on Sunday night, she goes, “I don’t suppose he’s fed you properly” and “Did he remember to give you your pocket money this time?” Jason says they never stop moaning and he just wants to put his fingers in his ears sometimes and go la-la-la, I’m not listening—the way you do when you’re just a kid.
We used to go fishing, me and Dad. I’ve told you about my rod, yeah? The reel is excellent. Ex-cell-ent. I haven’t been for ages.
I crunch another ice cube and Mum does her sighing thing again.
“Or whatever you like.” Dad gives this little kind of weird laugh. “I could get my secretary to call your secretary, see when you’re free.”
That’s what he used to say, ever since I was just a little kid. He started it—I dunno—as long ago as I can remember. I think it’s ‘cause like this one time he goes,
“Are you ready for your tea now, Natty?” And I’m playing on the floor with my cars and I shout, “No!”
And so he goes, “Oh, right. Shall I get my secretary to call your secretary to arrange a more convenient time?”
You have to hear the way he says it, really posh, like he’s the big boss in a suit and all that. As I got older, I’d do different replies like, “You can’t—she’s off today.”
Or I go: “She says I’m booked solid till Christmas.”
Or: “I could fit it in now—before I have to fly to New York.”
I finished crunching my ice cube. It sounded really loud in my head, like it was a real rock or something.
“Nah, ‘m busy. Gotta go.”
Then I went out.
“Nathan! Shut the door! For the
hundredth
time!” Nag, nag, nag. I went back and gave it a really big tug so it’d bang shut. Then I leant my head against the door, see if he’d say anything. But he didn’t.
Then there was Mum’s voice, just loud enough for me to hear.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
I don’t know why she’s saying sorry. I thought it was all supposed to be his fault. He’s the one who’s run off and left us. That’s why Mum kept crying in the bathroom with the radio turned up loud. She makes out she’s fine with the whole thing, but she’s not.
I go upstairs then, taking them two at a time, and into Rosie’s room.
“How come you never knock on my door but I have to knock on yours?”
“'Cause you’re only a kid, Rozza.” I go in and dive full-length onto her bed.
“Natty! You’ll break it.”
“Nag, nag. You’re getting as bad as Mum.”
“Natty?”
“Yes-ee?”
“Did you hear what Mum and Dad were saying?”
I turn onto my back and stretch my legs back over my head to try to kick the wall.
“Boring stuff mostly. You know, grown-up stuff.”
“Daddy’s not going to come back ever, is he?”
Rosie’s sitting on her chair, swinging her legs, bouncing that old bear up and down on her lap.
“Nah.” I swing round and drop my head over the side of the bed and rest it on the floor. “Anyway, we’re better off without him, Rozza. If he wants to go off with his stupid mistress, that’s his loss. We’ll be OK.”
“He hasn’t got a mistress, he said so.”
I do a kind of wonky somersault and crash onto the floor, just missing my Coke glass by about a quarter of a millimetre. I reach out to grab Rosie’s bear and make him do acrobatics on my stomach and my legs. She likes it when I do that.
“Well, he’s a liar if he told you that. You should know better than to believe anything
he
says.”
“Can I have some of your Coke?”
I hand it over.
“OK. One sip. No gulping. And don’t take any ice.”
“Will you come with us next time?”
“When?”
“On Sunday. With Dad.”
I turn the bear upside-down and bounce him up and down on his head.
“Dunno. Doubt it.” I reach for my glass. “You’ve had your sip. Give it back.” Then, right there, I see it, a bump in the side of her cheek. Ice.
“Oi! Rozza!”
She looks up at me.
“Mmm?”
I can still see it, but for some reason I shrug and let her off.
“Never mind.” Then I head out the door. “Got to do my homework. See ya, kiddo.”
She likes it when I call her kiddo.
Cassie said we should go for it, but I had my doubts. Mega-doubts as Nat would say. What if it doesn’t turn out right? I kept saying. What’ll I do then? What then?
“You’re only young once,” said Cassie. “Well, only middle-aged once at any rate, and I’m in no hurry to be a cauliflower-head. Are you? Why be old before your time?” That’s what she calls old ladies, cauliflower-heads, because of that hair they all have.
“But I
am.
That’s just it. I
am
old before my time. I’ll be forty in two days and I’m not ready. It feels as if it’s all downhill from now on.”
“Get away!” Cassie aimed a fake blow at my head. “Believe me, I’ll be first in line to tell you if I see you capering up the High Street with a ring through your navel and a belt masquerading as a skirt. But just ‘cause you’re forty doesn’t mean you’ve got to wear effing navy slacks the rest of your life, does it?”
Cassie’s forty-four and still has a heavy hand with the mascara wand, it must be said.
“S’pose not.”
“Right then. Are we doing this or not?”
* * *
I knew if I thought about it too long, I’d never do it. Let’s face it, if I thought about it at all, I wouldn’t do it. But this is the new me. I refuse to be the woman who has no life. I suppose sometimes you have to stop thinking and planning and just get on with it. God, if Scotty could hear me say that, me who’s always saying to him, used to say, “Scott, you have to think things through first. Everything has consequences.” He used to tease me because I always like to plan ahead, used to joke: “Gail loves to be spontaneous—yup, every Wednesday at two o’clock. She puts it down in her diary, don’t you? ‘Be spontaneous.’ And every other Saturday: 11 p.m.—'Get carried away.'”
“I can’t look. I can’t look.”
“Oh, behave,” said Cassie. “One sec. Right. Now look.”
I peeked through my fingers, like at a horror film, expecting to see, I don’t know, “The Amityville Hairstyle,” “Hair-Care on Elm Street.”
I opened my fingers a bit more.
“It certainly
is
red, isn’t it?” I took my hands down. My mascara had run, of course, from having my hair washed, so I had panda-eyes, but aside from that …
“Well?” Cassie stood, hands on hips, watching me in the mirror. “Should have done it before your hot date with Michael. You’d have had him dribbling down his front.”
“I think he does that anyway, it’s all those tranquillizers. Next time, see if you can fix me up with someone who’s not been on medication for ten years.” I turned from side to side. The redhead opposite me turned too. “Is that really me?”
Cassie nodded, smiling smugly back at me.
“007,” she said holding out the hairdryer at arm’s length in front of her. “Deadliest woman with a Braun 2000 this side of Dover.”
“Actually, it’s not bad, is it?” I tweaked at the front, pushing a strand off my face.
“Not bad? Not bad!” Cassie laughed and knocked back the last of her Bacardi. “You’re beyond help—you look fucking gorgeous!”
There was a beeping as the second alarm clock went off.
“Ah-hah!” I tugged at Cassie’s towel turban. “Time! ladies, please! Your turn now. Get your head over that bath, Blondie, and let’s have a look at you.”
“Happy Birthday,” I say, as the door opens. “Holy shit.”
Gail looks a total knockout. Her head is all red. Her hair I mean. Gorgeous deep red and shiny. She’s got on these big dangly earrings instead of small studs like she normally wears, and she’s wearing a new dress, well new to me anyhow. It sort of slithers and slinks all the way down nearly to the floor and it’s kind of silvery. It looks soft and silky like it’s begging me to touch it and it’s all I can do to stop myself reaching out and sliding my hands all down her front. Even her feet look nice, in silver sandals with nail polish on her toes—a coppery colour like her hair. And, get this, she isn’t wearing a bra, which is so unlike her it’s untrue. I come this close to saying, “Wey-hey, putting on a show for passers-by? Where can I get a ticket?” Fortunately, I manage not to and that’s why I’m still alive to tell the tale. She’s not got much up top (which she’s dead touchy about, but I never minded), but what she does have is all jostling about under there and her nipples are sticking out, little bumps under the silky material.
“Oh,” she says. “It’s you. Hi, Scott, what do you want?”
“Nice to see you too, Gail. Great dress, by the way. You never used to dress up to do the hoovering.”
“I’m just trying it on for later. Is it—well, do you think it’s … all right?” Is she serious? What’s wrong with women? Why can’t they ever tell when they look 100 per cent shaggable? Still, I remember not to stand there with my tongue hanging out and instead opt for a small but friendly smile and a modest compliment.
“It’s very nice. Really suits you. But don’t be wearing it around anyone under-age, OK?” She smiles and folds her arms across her chest. No, no,
no
—let the world get the good of those nipples. “Anyway, I was just passing and thought I’d pop by to wish you a happy birthday—” I flourish the flowers from behind my back like a conjuror “—and give you these.”
“Oh. Well. Thank you, Scott. I wasn’t expecting anything. That’s sweet of you.”
“Well, it
is
your fortieth. I could hardly—”
“Gosh, so it is. Thanks for reminding me. I’d better stick a note on the fridge door in case I forget.”
I sigh and roll my eyes at her.
“Come on, Gaily—I didn’t mean—well, sorry anyhow. And have a great birthday. You look ace. Terrific. You really do. Not a day over thirty-nine. No, just kidding. I’m
kidding
for chrissakes. You look about eighteen.” I look at my watch. “Does your mum know you’re still up?”
She shakes her head at me, then clucks her tongue softly, the way she does when she’s trying to make her mind up about something.
“I’m having a party. You can come if you want. About eight.” She leans against the doorframe, stretching her dress more tightly over her tits. Down boy, I tell myself, don’t screw up now, you’re doing well. “Thanks again.” She holds the bouquet up like an Olympic torch. “For the flowers.” She looks down at her dress then and tweaks at the material against her thigh, sliding it between finger and thumb. Need a hand with that at all? If so, look no further. I’m your man.
See, she’s dead horny looking when she can be bothered. I wish she’d bothered to dress up for me a bit more often. You know, I never planned to do the dirty on Gail. All right, I confess, I came pretty close a couple of times before Angela, but it’s not like I’ve been sat through day after day of married life thinking, “Now, how can I sleep with someone else?”
But if I had been going to sleep with someone, planning it I mean, I wouldn’t have picked Angela anyway. For one thing, she’s not really my type. Not that I exactly have a type—I mean, if it’s wearing a skirt and a smile, it’s my type—but if I did have a type, she wouldn’t be it. Not that she’s been begging me for a repeat visit either. I phoned her a while back, just to see how she was and that, but she was cold as a sodding ice-pop, said she’d rather I didn’t contact her again. Yes, Ma’am!
No, if I’d been on the lookout for a bit of extra-curricular attention, I’d have gone for thingybob, who brings the rolls. Whatsername. The tasty woman in the van, who comes round with sandwiches and stuff, drives round town to the offices and workshops like ours. I’ve never even seen her outside her van so I’ve no idea what she looks like from the waist down. Might have fat ankles like Denise. Or an artificial leg like Cassie’s husband. Two artificial legs. No legs. I wonder what it’d be like doing it with someone with no legs. Do you think they take them off when they have sex? Or leave them on? I was thinking about this actually because I was reading an old paper in the pub the other night. In the magazine bit there were these two women—one had no legs and the other had one leg and they were drop-dead gorgeous, both of them, and I thought, well, I wouldn’t mind if they were up for it, either of them. Or both.
But I digress. Oh, yeah. Thingybob. What I do know is there’s not many women who look good in an apron but she’s one of them, and she’s got really nice arms. She’s always pushing her sleeves up and when she reaches out to give you your change, you can see the soft hairs on her arms and you have to stop yourself giving them a bit of a stroke. Her hair’s dark brown, nearly black, and she wears it back in a ponytail or sort of piled up in a heap on top of her head. Pale skin. Eyes—dunno. Yes, she has got eyes. Blue maybe. Might be green. Or hazel. It’s hard to tell ‘cause she’s higher up, you see, what with standing in the van looking down at us poor hungry mortals. See, we don’t really get many women on the estate aside from Denise who I don’t count and a couple of old birds here and there, but not anyone who’d be a front-runner if you were in need of a leg-over. Even Thingybob’s not an obvious choice. No make-up, or not much. The lads flirt with her, of course, and so do I, but it’s only like keeping your hand in, it’s not for serious. She looks sort of … sensible. The kind of girl whose hand you had to hold at school when you walked to the library once a fortnight—you know, the bad boys with the goody-goody girls to keep them in line. What
is
her name?