He turned the paper round to show Terry. “Look.”
Terry, who had four teenagers, merely grimaced.
“You know, Tel,” Tractor said wistfully, “I’d love to have a baby.”
“What, yer biological clock ticking, is it?” Terry chortled.
“You know what I mean. I’d like to be a dad one day, that’s all—after I’ve finally settled down. I reckon kids really brighten up a home.”
“Yeah, they never turn off any bloody lights.” Terry paused. “So you haven’t got any other ideas for a job, then?”
“Nah,” Tractor said. “Not that it really matters because I’m expecting to hear from the Kellogg’s people any day now. I tell you, mate, once I get the Kellogg’s money—wey hey!”
“What Kellogg’s money?”
“Didn’t I tell you?”
“Don’t think so.”
“This is just between you and me, right?” he said, lowering his voice, but not enough so that Rachel couldn’t hear perfectly well. “The thing is, I’ve invented this new breakfast cereal. Well, not the cereal itself, not the ingredients—more the shape of the bits. It’s got a Roman theme.”
“Roman,” Terry repeated.
“Yeah . . . what I did was design a whole load of these wheaty bits in the shape of chariots, gladiators, slaves, lions and the Emperor Nero with his thumb down. Then I sent the drawings off to the chairman of Kellogg’s to offer him first refusal on the idea, which, even though I do say it myself, I am in no doubt he will accept. What is more, Terry my old son, I have come up with this stellar brand name . . . get this, you’ll love it . . . Imperial Cereal.”
“Imperial Cereal. Yeah,” Terry said, straight-faced. “Yeah, I suppose it’s got a certain ring about it.”
“Too right it blinkin’ has,” Tractor said emphatically. “But this is just between us, right? You’re not to breathe a word, Tel. Not a word. This could be worth millions, mate. Absolute millions.”
“Don’t worry,” Terry said, clearly humoring him. “My lips are sealed.”
Rachel put down her comedy notes and frowned. For some reason Tractor’s cereal invention rang a bell with her. She vaguely remembered somebody telling her about a friend of theirs doing something similar, but for the life of her she couldn’t think who.
Just then a particularly pretty twenty-something woman wearing a Lycra top and no bra got up from a table of other twenty-something women and headed toward the bar. Rachel turned round slowly in her seat, unable to resist getting an eyeful of what she knew would happen next.
She watched Tractor giving the woman the once-over, take
The Clitorati
out of his pocket and place it beside him on the bar. When she reached the bar and failed to notice the book, he tapped the cover. “Brilliant book,” he said, drawing on his cigarette. “In my opinion it’s a profound and thought-provoking historical analysis of gender conflict from the eighteenth century to—”
“Really?” she cut across him. “I’m impressed. But if you take another look at the quote on the back, I think you’ll find it says ‘searing historical analysis,’ not ‘profound.’ ”
“Oh,” he said, giving her a wink, “so you’ve learned it as well, have you?”
“Not exactly. I wrote it.” She turned the book over. “You see after the quote it says, Rosie Lloyd,
New Society
. Well, that’s me. I’m Rosie Lloyd.” She turned to Terry and ordered a Perrier, while Tractor, not even remotely humiliated or put off his stroke, started asking her if she fancied going out for a curry.
“It’d be on me,” he called after her as she went back to her seat. “You could have a starter and everything.”
Rachel was chuckling away quietly to herself when she felt somebody tapping her shoulder. She jumped and swung round to see Pitsy beaming at her. Rachel groaned inwardly. As far as she knew, Pitsy lived in Clapham. She was miles off her patch.
“Rachel, hi. What are you doing here?”
“I live just round the corner. I’m meeting Lenny for lunch. What about you?”
Pitsy pulled out a chair and sat down. She explained, as she took a sip from her Guinness, that she was meeting a girlfriend who also lived in the neighborhood.
“Listen, Rache, I am just so sorry to hear about what happened to your ankle.”
“Thanks.”
“Must be painful.”
“It was. But it’s much better now.”
“So how’s the writing going?”
“Oh, not bad,” Rachel said, forcing a smile. “Getting there. You know.” She folded the papers in half, slipped them inside her bag and put the bag at her feet.
“Well, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. If there’s anything I can do to help . . .”
Rachel felt inclined to ask Pitsy how she had the barefaced effrontery to offer her help, when she was so hard up for decent material herself that she was stealing it from Noeleen Piccolo. But she didn’t. It would only cause a scene.
“So how’s your writing going, Janeece?” Rachel asked, through gritted teeth.
“You know what it’s like when you write all your own material,” Pitsy replied with a deep shrug that had the effect of sending her half of Guinness, which she appeared to have quite forgotten she was holding, almost entirely down Rachel’s front.
Rachel let out a shocked cry and leaped out of her seat. Her T-shirt was soaked through.
“Oh, just look at me,” she squealed, pulling her shirt away from her bra and shaking it. “I’m drenched.”
“Rachel, I really am terribly . . .”
But Rachel wasn’t listening. She was already running to the loo.
Muttering about Pitsy being clumsy as well as stupid and dishonest, Rachel dabbed at her front with paper towels. Her T-shirt was covered in a very large, very brown stain. The only way she was going to get it out was to soak it in bleach when she got home. All she could do now was attempt to dry it. She spent the next ten minutes standing with her breasts thrust under the hot-air hand dryer.
She figured that if Lenny arrived, Pitsy would explain what had happened.
As Rachel returned to the bar, she saw Pitsy standing at the table, putting on her coat.
“Hi, Lizzie,” she called out to a woman coming toward her. It was clearly the friend she’d been waiting for. Rachel watched them hug each other hello. Then Pitsy took the woman’s arm and guided her, rather briskly, Rachel thought, toward the door.
“She might at least have waited until I got back before running off,” she said to herself. “
And
she’s left my handbag on the floor.”
Rachel was too busy darting over to retrieve her bag to notice the one Pitsy was now carrying. It was a Kinko’s carrier.
* * * * *
Pitsy had been gone no more than a few seconds when Lenny appeared. “Christ, sorry I’m late. I got carried away in a seismology chat room. Then the traffic was murder. Did you know they’ve found some really interesting new tektites in the Czech Republic? By the way, you’ll never guess who I saw walking down the street.”
“Pitsy,” Rachel said glumly. “She was making a quick exit. She just spilled Guinness down me.”
“It wouldn’t surprise me if that was deliberate,” Lenny said.
“Nah,” Rachel replied. “She’s just an all-purpose klutz. Before I forget, does the name Vanessa Marx mean anything to you? She’s meant to be some shit-hot new comic and I’ve never heard of her.”
Lenny shook his head. “Me neither.”
“You sure?”
“Absolutely. Why?”
Rachel explained about her being Xantia’s niece.
“Come on, Rache, you know how people exaggerate, particularly relatives. She’s probably just a Red Coat at Butlins or something.”
“But Xantia was adamant about her entering the competition.”
“Maybe she is. But if we’ve never heard of her, she’s nothing to worry about.”
“I’m not worried exactly. I just hate not knowing who I’m up against.”
“I know,” he said kindly. “But you have to believe me when I tell you that nobody’s got a better chance of at least getting in the top five than you. And anyone who’s there or thereabouts will be made.”
“Oh, come off it,” she said, feeling herself going red with embarrassment.
“If only you’d stop being so bloody modest. You know I’m right about the competition, don’t you?”
She shrugged. “Maybe.”
“That’s better,” he said, smiling. “Now, what are you having to drink?”
* * * * *
Joe brought Sam home just after eight.
“Mum, Mum, I’ve missed you,” he squealed, charging at her and virtually knocking her off her feet.
“Whoa, Sam,” Rachel cried out as she hugged him, at the same time doing her best to steady herself. “Mind my bad ankle. Come on, I think we’d better sit down.”
“Has he been OK?” she asked Joe as she sat on the sofa with Sam, who seemed perfectly content to sit on her lap while she kissed him and rocked him back and forth in her arms like a two-year-old.
“Absolutely fine,” Joe said. “Apart from all the Barbra stuff.”
“So have you heard from her yet?” Rachel said, smiling at Sam and brushing his fringe out of his eyes.
“No, not yet. But I know I will. I’m just certain.”
Rachel shook her head good-naturedly.
“And Mum, you’ll never guess what. Greg let me use his blowtorch.”
“His blowtorch?” Rachel exclaimed. “Gosh, I hope you wore goggles. So what were you doing—burning off old paint?”
“Derrr,” Sam said, looking at her as if she were a bit simple. “We were making crème brûlée.”
CHAPTER 16
Rachel and Shelley carried on down the road, falling about with laughter. In an attempt to enter the Christmas spirit, the owners of the Korean minimarket on the corner had on display in their window a three-foot-tall fiberglass Santa Claus nailed to a cross.
They were on their way to the post office to pick up Shelley’s new vibrator. She’d broken her last one getting rid of a spider. It had been crawling across the bedroom carpet toward the bed, which she was in at the time. Having once watched a nature documentary that had explained that spiders always run away from loud noise, she had made a grab for the vibrator that she kept on her bedside table. In her extreme panic, however, she’d forgotten to turn the thing on and simply thrown it at the spider. She’d scored a bull’s-eye arachnidwise, but had destroyed the vibrator.
She’d ordered the new one from a company in America. (Shopping around on the Internet, she’d discovered the Vibromax Turbo 2000, made in Des Moines, had three times been voted vibrator of the year.)
She’d arrived home from the Flowtex Menstrual Mats shoot just before one o’clock. A faulty camera had interrupted filming earlier in the week and forced the actors and crew to work Saturday, but the director had taken pity on everybody by twelve and decided to call it a day. When she opened the front door, Shelley had found a card from the post office informing her that the postman had attempted to deliver a package that morning. It was now waiting to be picked up at the local depot.
Over the moon that the Vibromax had finally arrived—her pregnancy hormones were making her exceedingly horny and she couldn’t wait to give it a test run—she’d immediately dashed upstairs to ask Rachel if she’d come along to the post office with her to get it.
“That way I get some moral support,” she said.
“Why on earth do you need moral support?”
“Well, it might not come wrapped in plain paper. Can you imagine standing in the queue and being handed a package with ‘Al’s Vibrator Shack’ printed all over it? I’d want the ground to swallow me up. But if you’re there too, you can help me pretend we’re putting on a play and it’s a prop.”
Rachel had made the point that it was only a week until the comedy competition and she was up to her eyes editing and polishing her material, but Shelley had offered to buy her cappuccino and a sandwich at Starbucks so she’d given in.
* * * * *
By now they’d almost reached the post office.
“So are you going to tell Matt how you feel about him?”
Rachel stopped briefly and ran her foot through a pile of brown crispy leaves. “Yep . . . I just hope he feels the same way, that’s all.”
Shelley raised her eyebrows.
“OK, OK. I know he fancies me, but that doesn’t mean he’s in love with me. Suppose all he’s after is a casual affair?”
“It’s possible, but from what you’ve told me about him, I doubt it. So you’ve finally decided to end it with Adam, then?”
Rachel nodded. “I have to—even if I don’t get it together with Matt. Things haven’t been right between me and Adam for ages. If I’m honest, they probably never were. Being with Matt finally made me face up to it.”
Shelley reached out, took Rachel’s gloved hand and squeezed it. “Come on,” she said. “We’re here.”
* * * * *
The bloke behind the collection depot counter looked down at the card Shelley had handed him.
“Ooh,” he said, shaking his head and tweaking a ginger beard hair between grubby nails. “I’m not sure we’re going to have much luck finding this. You can see what a mess we’re in.”
Indeed they could. Apparently a main water pipe had burst the day before and the area behind the counter where all the parcels were stored had been flooded. The smell of wet cardboard hung in the air and on top of trestle tables stood umpteen untidy piles of sodden, half-open packages—many of them minus their address labels.
“What did you say the parcel had in it?” the chap said to Shelley.
“Oh . . . er . . . it’s . . .” She cleared her throat nervously. “What would you say it is, Rachel?”
“Electrical goods,” her friend obliged.
“What, as in a kitchen appliance?”
“More bedroom, really,” Rachel said.
Shelley blushed and dug her in the ribs.
“What, you mean like a bedside light?”
“Er . . . a bit more animated than that,” Shelley replied.
“Look, we’re going round in circles here,” the post office bloke said. “You tell me what it is and I’ll do my best to find it.”
Just then Rachel spotted an oblong parcel with the name of their road just about discernible. “Oh, look,” she said. “That’s it—over there.”
The chap went to fetch it.
“Then again it does look a bit big,” Rachel whispered, “for a . . . you know . . .”
“It’ll just be the packing,” Shelley told her.
“Um,” Ginger Beard said slowly, putting the package on the counter, “the road name’s there all right, but the number’s been washed away. We’d better open it, just to check it’s yours.”
“Oh no,” Shelley shot back, coloring up. “That really won’t be necessary. I’m sure it’s my parcel.”
But the chap insisted. Apparently under these circumstances it was post office regulations.
As Shelley’s face grew redder and redder, he carefully opened the parcel. Half a minute later its contents were sitting on the counter.
“Ooh,” he enthused. “The wife would just love this. She’s been nagging me for ages. You see, when I’m on earlies, I’m up at five. That means leaving before I have a chance to give her one. This would give her a real thrill.”
He paused.
“So this is definitely your package then?” he asked Shelley.
“Oh yes,” she said, swallowing hard. “Definitely.”
The next minute she was making a beeline for the door, the automatic bedside tea maker under her arm.
* * * * *
“But it’s not yours, you can’t keep it,” Rachel panted once she caught up with her.
“I know,” Shelley said. “I’ll drop it back later and say there’s been a mistake.”
Shelley was trying to convince Rachel to come back with her and create a diversion by pretending to faint so that she could nip behind the counter, locate the vibrator and run off without Ginger Beard noticing, when they heard somebody calling Rachel’s name from across the road.
“It’s Matt,” Rachel said, smiling and waving. He was carrying a bulging Waitrose bag in one hand.
“God, he is
gor
-geous,” Shelley squealed as she watched Matt darting through the traffic toward them. “He could put his hand inside my drum any night of the week.”
“Hi,” Matt said to Rachel, bending down to give her a quick peck. He smelled deliciously of the cold.
“Hi, you,” she purred, kissing him back.
“How’s the ankle?” he said.
“Fine. Almost back to normal.”
“So, Rache,” Shelley said, her eyes glued to Matt, “aren’t you going to introduce us?”
Rachel performed the introductions.
“Hello,” Shelley purred, her voice several dozen octaves lower than usual. She stood still gazing at him, her mouth slightly open, her eyes beginning to glaze over. In the end, Rachel brought her to by standing on her foot.
“Oh right. Well, I’d best be going . . . I’ve . . . er, I’ve got to go and see a man about a vibrator. Nice to meet you, Matt.” Then she walked away, clearly having no idea what she’d said.
“So that’s Shelley,” Matt said, putting an arm round Rachel as they began walking down the street.
Rachel nodded.
“The spinster who wears fawn and never misses
Antiques Roadshow
?”
Rachel gave him an uneasy smile.
“But she’s pregnant, wearing a zebra print coat and seems to have no qualms about telling a perfect stranger she uses a vibrator.”
“I know,” Rachel said innocently. “It’s amazing how much she’s come out of herself recently.”
* * * * *
As it was lunchtime and she was missing out on her cappuccino and sandwich, she invited Matt back to the flat for a bite to eat.
“Great,” he said. “Then I can pick up my watch. I left it in the bathroom when we . . .”
His voice trailed off. He took her arm, forcing her to stop. Then he kissed her on the lips.
* * * * *
Back at the flat, Rachel got busy making coffee.
“So how’s the writing going?” Matt asked.
She explained she’d pretty much finished and that it was simply a question of editing and memorizing her material now.
“I’d love to take a look at what you’ve written,” he said.
She colored up. “God, I couldn’t possibly let you see,” she said.
“Oh go on . . . please.”
It took him a few more minutes of gentle persuasion before she finally gave in and went to fetch the printout of her set.
As Matt read through it, every so often he would burst out laughing and repeat bits back to her.
“This is fantastic,” he said when he’d got to the end. “Absolutely fantastic. I am so proud of you.”
She blushed a second time.
“Come here,” he said, pulling her toward him. “I want you.”
They had just started to kiss when the intercom went off.
“Oh, I forgot. That’s Sam back from swimming.”
“Look,” he said, “if you’re not ready for me to meet him yet, I’ll go.”
Rachel’s mind began racing. As far as Sam was concerned she was about to marry Adam. Letting him think she had a new boyfriend would only cause complications—particularly as she couldn’t be certain as to the precise nature of her relationship with Matt.
“Could we just pretend you’ve come to mend the washing machine?” she asked.
“No problem.”
* * * * *
“Hey, Sam,” she called out as her son dashed past her toward his bedroom. “Don’t dump your wet things in the hall. Pick them up and take them to the laundry basket.”
He trotted back obediently, his wet fringe matted and plastered to his forehead. “Who’s that in the kitchen?” he asked.
She told her white lie. Apparently satisfied, he disappeared with his bag of swimming things.
Rachel decided to go and fetch Matt’s watch, which she’d put in her dressing table for safekeeping. In the end it took her a few minutes to find it. The dressing table had three drawers and she couldn’t for the life of her remember which one she’d put it in.
When she came back to the kitchen, Matt was still sitting at the kitchen table, but he had been joined by Sam. Having clearly introduced themselves, they now appeared to be deep in conversation. Rachel stood just inside the doorway, watching them, not wanting to interrupt. It occurred to her that in the two years he had known Sam, Adam had never really sat down and talked to him.
“So how long have you been into Streisand, then?” Matt was saying.
“Oh, I dunno, a year or so. I know all her songs by heart.”
“Really? My old dad’s a huge fan. He’s got loads of her records.”
“Me too, but I bet he hasn’t got
Pins and Needles,
the 1962 album. Or
Color Me Barbra,
the original 1966 version.”
“No,” Matt said. “I don’t think he has.”
“My dad got
Color Me Barbra
for me last week from this secondhand record shop we go to in Finsbury Park. I’ve got it in my room. I’ll play it for you if you like.” Sam jumped up from his chair.
“Come on, Sam,” Rachel said, walking into the room, “Matt’s got to look at the washing machine. I’m sure he hasn’t got time for . . .”
“Oh, I can always find a few minutes to listen to some vintage Streisand,” Matt said, standing up. “Right, Sam. You lead the way.”
As Matt passed her she slipped his watch into his hand and he put it in his jeans pocket.
* * * * *
A few minutes later Matt came back to the kitchen, having left Sam still playing records in his room.
“Great kid,” he said.
Rachel beamed as she poured coffee into mugs.
“It’s funny,” he said, sitting back down at the table and taking one of the mugs. “I’ve got this cousin—Dudley, his name is. About fifteen years older than me. For years he worked as a small-town solicitor—somewhere in Leicestershire—doing divorces and conveyancing. Then in the mid-eighties he left his wife and took himself off to California. Apparently he did a law conversion course and family rumor has it that he’s now some hotshot Hollywood lawyer. Don’t know if I quite believe it, but according to my dad, he’s Barbra Streisand’s attorney.”
“Sounds a bit far-fetched to me,” Rachel said.
“Yeah, probably,” Matt said with a shrug.
Rachel took a sip of her coffee. “Matt, look, I want to apologize for Sam. He gets a bit carried away with this Barbra thing. It’s actually becoming something of an obsession. Joe just encourages it. I wish he wouldn’t.”
Matt laughed. “Do you know, I can’t help thinking how much Sam reminds me of myself.”
“What, you were into Barbra Streisand?”
“No. Torvill and Dean.”
Rachel almost choked on her coffee.
“Of course I was a fair bit older than Sam—nearly fifteen. But every time they came on the TV, I just sat there captivated. There can’t have been many teenage boys asking their mothers for ice-skating lessons. I even made her buy me one of those Lycra all-in-one-suit things. My dad went nuts, of course. Started calling me a poof. I don’t think we exchanged a civil word for six months.”
“God, that’s awful. How can a parent be so cruel?”
“Oh, you have to see it in context,” Matt said. “My dad was a builder. Even now, he’s a great big hulking bear of a man. All his drinking mates were brickies and scaffolders. Can you imagine the grief they’d have given him if they’d discovered he had a gay son?”
“S’pose,” she shrugged. “But that’s as long as it lasted, then—your obsession with Torvill and Dean—just six months?”
“Yeah, I think in the end I just got bored.”
“Oh well, that’s good to know.” She gave a nervous laugh.
He began looking at her quizzically. “Rachel, are you really worried about Sam and this Barbra thing?”
“Worried?” she said defensively. “Why should I be worried?”
“I dunno. You just seem a bit tense all of a sudden.”
She stared into her coffee.
“You think Sam’s going to turn out to be gay like his dad, don’t you?” he said.