The Good Neighbour (38 page)

7. Do you have a favourite time of day to write? A favourite place?

My preferred time of day – between 2 and 9pm – is incompatible with family life. I just start to feel inspired when I have to down tools to collect children from school, make tea, etc. I’ve learned to force myself to write during school hours and snatch other time when I can. For instance, I am writing these answers while sitting in my children’s martial arts class. My favourite place to write is at my desk in the attic. But I also love writing on trains.

8. Have you always wanted to write? What other jobs have you had? And if you weren’t a novelist, what would your dream career be?

I’ve had a lot of jobs. I’ve been a psychology lecturer, a journalist, a sexual health trainer, a creative learning manager (still not sure what that is), an alcohol counsellor, a volunteer coordinator and an audio-typist. I’ve worked in a bread shop, a chemist’s, and a stationery shop. My worst job was temping in a stockbrokers, where my sole task was to put thousands of old newspapers into date order. My best job was working on a computer magazine, the long-defunct
MicroDecision
, because it was the old-school days of journalism when everyone smoked in the office and went out for three-hour lunches. This makes me sound contemporaneous with Evelyn Waugh, which is odd as I am only twenty-three.

I told a teacher when I was seven that I wanted to be a poet when I grew up, and she kindly said, ‘I’m sure you will be, dear.’ She was wrong; I am a terrible poet. I loved writing at school, but then got out of the habit and didn’t start again till I was in my thirties. In all my many jobs, though, I always made sure that writing was involved. If I wasn’t writing handouts and booklets, it was newsletters. I love a good newsletter.

I now mix writing books with teaching writing and book coaching. My dream career is exactly what I do, except much better paid.

9. Who are your favourite authors? What are you reading at the moment?

I’ve waited so long for someone to ask about my favourite authors that when it finally happened, I went temporarily blank. Like Rob in Nick Hornby’s
High Fidelity
, when he was asked his top five records. OK. In alphabetical order, they are Douglas Adams, Jane Austen, Judy Blume, Laurie Colwin, Monica Dickens, Nora Ephron, Margaret Forster, William Goldman, Howard Jacobson, David Lodge, John O’Farrell, Anne Tyler, Molly Weir and PG Wodehouse.

I’m a member of a slightly niche group called ‘Debut Novelists aged over forty’ and I’m currently trying to read all their books. There’s more than thirty of us in the group, so it’s taking a little while. Some cracking reads in amongst that lot, though.

10. Which book do you wish you could have written? Which classic have you always meant to read and never got round to?

The book I wish I’d written is
Heartburn
, by Nora Ephron.

There are so many classics I have never got round to.
Ulysses
, of course, but also
Crime & Punishment
,
Catch-22
,
Don Quixote
… I suppose I haven’t read them because they didn’t much appeal. The one I would like to read is
War & Peace
, because I love
Anna Karenina
, and I imagine it’s quite similar, right?

‘I never think of Laura as my step-sister, but that’s what she is.’

Once they were the best of friends, inseparable as only teenage girls can be.

That is until Miffy’s Jewish father runs off with Laura’s Catholic mother and both of their families imploded – as well as Laura’s intense relationship with Miffy’s brother …

Twenty years on, they’re all about to meet again …

Also available from Ebury Press

I turn on the stairs when I hear that name.

Miffy.

Not my real name. A nickname. No one has used it for more than twenty years.

Laura stands framed in the doorway of her room. I’d know her anywhere. I try to focus on her face, on her dark eyes with their thick lashes, but against my will my own eyes keep sliding down to her stomach.

She raises her hand as if she’s going to wave, then the hand changes direction and smoothes her hair, the lovely sleek black hair I used to envy. Cut shorter now. She’s still beautiful, though not the way she was at fourteen.

Last night I deliberately avoided her. Said hello but nothing more. It didn’t look too obvious. After a death, normal rules don’t apply.

She says, ‘Do you want to come in for a minute, Miffy?’

I knew being here would mean facing Laura. She was once such a significant figure in my life; a symbol of everything that went wrong. Now I know she’s just a person who did some stupid things.

And haven’t we all, as Dad would say if he were here.

You know those women who say, ‘Oh, I only take five minutes to get ready’? I always want to say, ‘Yes, darling, I can see that, but what did you do for the other four minutes?’

I take my time. Always have. Hair, make-up, clothes. It’s so important to do it properly. You can tell when it’s been rushed.

Huw says I’m high maintenance. Used to mean it as a compliment. Now it’s:
Laura, what have you been doing for the last hour?
Now it’s:
Laura, you look no different from when you went upstairs.
Thanks, honey bun; love you too.

Don’t tell him, but tonight’s session
has
been a bit of a marathon – nearly two hours. Partly because of my sodding chin and its plucking hair (ha!); and partly because it’s been hard to get the exact blend of foundation to disguise the bruise.

The crowd is roaring on the TV downstairs. You know what? Huw should be pleased. He didn’t want to miss the football, and now he’s had time for the game
and
the inevitable post-match recriminations. Dopey Paige is down there too, doubtless staring at the telly with her mouth open, drool trickling from her lower lip. The only nineteen-year-old in Wales with no plans for Valentine’s, bless her hefty backside. I know it’s a waste, paying her to babysit while we’re still here. But my chin hairs have started to instantly replace themselves, like a sustainable forest.

‘What’s happening,
cariad
? Was wondering if you’d died up here.’

Huw’s face looms behind mine in the mirror. Eleven years my senior, but looks fresher than me. His silvery blond hair flops onto his forehead, giving him a boyish air. Slim, clean-shaven, eyes the same bright fall-in-love-with-me blue I fell in love with.

I know I look older than thirty-seven. My hair’s cut in what passes for a sharp bob in North Wales: basically a straggly bob. I used to think my Spanish heritage was a gift: thick black hair and olive skin, like my mother and Frida Kahlo. But these days I’m more of a flabby old peasant-type, whose key resemblance to Frida is the facial hair.

‘Can you see the bruise?’ I ask.

Huw peers at my forehead. ‘No, it’s hidden under a trowel-load of cement.’

Did I mention this bruise? It’s all right, it’s not hurting that much any more. I put on some more smouldering purple eye-shadow. My big brown eyes, once my best feature, have so many lines round them I’ve been considering Botox, even though it’s just
not done
here in the back arse of beyond. Not done because if you bother with your appearance beyond wearing matching socks, everyone thinks you’re trivial. And literally not done, either, because there aren’t any proper clinics. You’d have to go somewhere metropolitan, like Liverpool. I once mentioned my interest in Botox to Ceri, and she reacted as if I’d told her I was considering having my boobs grafted to my head. Which I will do, if they slide any lower. That’s the bit I don’t like about being pregnant: the way your tits just kind of sit on your stomach, reminding you that the gravity-defying part of your life is over.

‘Come on,
cariad
, let’s go, if we’re going. You look fine.’ His Welshy sing-song accent used to charm me, but he surely knows by now that I find it irritating.

‘I do not look fine! I look like a fucking dog’s dinner!’

‘Dog’s bollocks, more like. Well, you could maybe try a different colour on your eyes. What with the bruise, people’ll think I took a swing at you.’

‘
Daaa
-ddy!’ The Ruler of the House is calling, demanding an immediate audience with her most favoured subject. Huw trots off to attend to Evie, and I squeeze into what used to be my reliable going-out dress, before my tummy began to resemble a bowling ball.

Did I mention I’m pregnant? Memory like a sieve. Well, I am. Keep your congratulations low-key. No one but me is particularly happy about it.

I pause outside Evie’s door. ‘I don’t want you to go out, Daddy.’

‘Well, darling,’ Huw says in his talking-to-children voice, ‘it’s important for mums and dads to go out together, isn’t it? To talk, and enjoy each other’s company.’

Doesn’t sound like any evening Huw and I have had for a while. But now I’m ready, I want to go. I’m starving, and Jenny-and-Paul are good cooks. Which almost makes up for them holding hands and droning on about how fucking happy they are.

I look into the living room, where Dopey Paige is staring – yes, mouth open – at the telly. I pull on my coat, and hover at the bottom of the stairs. Huw takes his time, being extra patient with Evie to get at me.

It’s a fifteen-minute drive to the dinner party – time enough to fit in a good row.

Me: ‘Just don’t embarrass me tonight, that’s all I ask.’

Him: ‘Why should I embarrass you?’

‘Let’s see. Hmm. How about snogging some
girl
in front of everyone. Yes, I think that qualifies as embarrassing, don’t you?’

‘One fucking kiss!’

‘So there was fucking as well, was there?’

‘Hilarious! You should be a stand-up. One fucking kiss in fifteen years!’

‘What do you want, a long-service medal?’

‘I want you to stop going on about it.’

‘I’ll stop going on about it when you tell me why you did it.’

‘Why does anyone do anything? I was pissed, I suppose.’

‘Yeah, right. Just a coincidence.’

‘Just a coincidence, what?’

‘That it happened when it did.’

‘What, on New Year’s Eve?’

‘Fuck New Year’s Eve! It was two days after I told you I was pregnant.’

‘It was New Year’s Eve! The traditional time for getting pissed and snogging people! It’s practically obligatory!’

‘Just a coincidence, then.’

‘Will you stop saying that?’

‘I’ll stop saying that when you stop snogging other women!’

And so on.

We don’t always argue like this. You’re not seeing us at our best. We’ve had our ups and downs: marrying too young (me); a broken marriage (him); then step-children (me); then Evie, our very own home-grown dictator (both of us). Then the miscarriages (me again). Not to mention both having come from complicated family lives. Though who doesn’t?

Till recently, we had a strong marriage.

Not lately, though. As I’m sure Huw would put it to the girl from New Year’s Eve, or any other totty he has hidden away, we are ‘going through a rough patch’.

We’re so late, Jenny-and-Paul have assumed we aren’t coming and have removed our chairs to make more room. They squeeze us back in, but they’re very much not thrilled.

‘We should have called,’ I say.

‘Never mind, you’re here now,’ Jenny says tightly. ‘There’s some lamb left.’

She’s only gone and decorated the room with red hearts. Spent this morning cutting out crêpe paper, bless her girlish little soul. I wouldn’t exactly say she is a friend, in case you’re wondering. I met her through Ceri, my boss. For a couple of years, Huw and I, Jenny-and-Paul, and Ceri-and-Whoever-She’s-With-This-Time have taken it in turns to host a monthly dinner. I used to fantasise that it would be a sophisticated salon-type thing, but forgot where I was and the sort of people I was dealing with.

Ceri’s all cosied up next to Rees. Since her divorce she’s been through most of the single men in Gwynedd, so I felt obliged to set her up with Rees, the last man standing. I’ve known him since my student days. Despite not being bad-looking, he’s never been married. Soon as he opens his mouth, you know why. ‘Well, hellooo, curvy lady,’ he says, leering at me.

Ceri shoves his arm; Huw pretends not to hear; I say, ‘Yes, Rees, a baby-belly is this season’s must-have accessory.’

Jenny plonks a sparse helping of dried-up lamb and potatoes in front of me and Huw, and we respond with stratospheric cries of gratitude. Jenny sits back down and pushes her dessert bowl aside. She hasn’t noticed the stain on her blouse. ‘We were worried about you,’ she says. ‘Wondering if something had happened’ – stage whisper – ‘with the baby,’ indicating my stomach with her eyes.

‘Oh, no, everything’s fine.’ I improvise: ‘The sitter was late.’

‘Thought you’d decided to have a romantic Valentine’s night in,’ says Paul.