‘I’m just . . . I’m hiding from someone, that’s all,’ I breathe. Even as I say it, I know I’m being ridiculous.
She frowns and straightens up. ‘Okay. Only, you’ve rubbed off half our specials there.’
I pull the back of my black top so I can examine it, realising I now have part of the line
king prawn, lime & ginger skewers
smudged backwards on me in chalk.
‘Oh God, sorry.’ I glance around the board again and see Alex still there, still talking.
I force the uncharitable thoughts tumbling through my head about his female companion to stop. Had I expected him to spend the last twelve years pining for me, for God’s sake?
‘Go out the back way, if you like,’ the waitress suggests.
I hesitate. ‘Would you mind?’
‘Course not,’ she grins, as I stand up and let her bundle me through the restaurant. Fellow diners look on as I optimistically wonder if they think I’m some sort of political fugitive – frantic but noble.
When we reach the door, the waitress grabs me by the arm and looks intently in my eyes. ‘Word of advice,’ she whispers. ‘I got caught shoplifting when I was fourteen and got away with it. At your age, you wouldn’t stand a chance.’
Chapter 16
That night, more than any other, I want Dan’s arms around me. I can’t explain why, beyond an instinctive need to sink into him, breathe him in and remind myself why I’m so lucky to have him.
Just him.
His text arrives as I’m turning into the gates of Buddington.
So sorry Gemma – something’s come up at work. Back as soon as I can.
I sigh and throw the phone onto the passenger seat. It beeps again.
I love you xxxxx
I open the door with the key Belinda gave me, even though it still feels like I’m breaking and entering, and am assaulted by a barrage of music from the conservatory.
There, I discover Belinda and her friends in an array of high-visibility Lycra, having a dance lesson from an older, significantly sprightlier man.
‘It’s my daughter-in-law!’ exclaims Belinda as the others take the opportunity to pause and catch their breath. ‘Come and join us, Gemma – just get your shoes and socks off. Bobby’s run us ragged!’
I attempt to suppress any visible alarm. ‘It looks brilliant, Belinda, but I’m shattered after work. I’m just going to have a bath and something to eat. Sorry to be boring.’
The music that pounds through the ceiling is an eclectic and extremely noisy mix of disco classics. I run a bath and slip in, watching the surface of the water pound to each Chaka Khan track as if Godzilla is en route to tear the roof off. Even with my headphones on the highest setting, it fails to drown out six women squawking
, ‘I’m ev’ry womannn!’
I close my eyes and try to clear my head – of everything. But all I can think about is seeing Alex today. About whether he saw me. And about why I couldn’t bring myself to go and say hello.
Pressure builds in my brain, in direct contravention of the state of relaxation I’m attempting to achieve. Eventually, I pull myself out of the bath, climb into my dressing gown and head to the bedroom to flick through a copy of
Marie Claire
magazine. I’m unable to take in a word of it.
I consider going to make my dinner now, throwing myself at the mercy of Belinda and her friends. But I’m feeling so rattled by what happened today that I haven’t got the energy to face them or anyone else. Except perhaps one person.
I pick up my phone and text Dan, asking him if he’ll be long.
Twenty minutes later, he hasn’t responded. And I’m still trapped in this room with an empty stomach and tortured brain. Quite suddenly, the music stops. I give it a minute or two, then creep to the door and prise it open in time to make out that they’re leaving to go for drinks.
The door slams. Footsteps crunch on the gravel. Car engines fire up, then fade away as they disappear up the drive. The house is still, silent – until another text arrives.
Gemma, so sorry. Eat without me, please & I’ll sort myself out x
I fling myself onto the bed as a mental image of Alex forces its way into my head again. He’s bulked out since we were teenagers, that slightly reedy frame no longer so skinny. I wonder if he realises how much better he looks? I hope so, as he was always mildly self-conscious about his body, though I could never work out why. I thought he was gorgeous until the day we kissed each other goodbye.
I shake the thought from my mind as I listen carefully for evidence of anybody else in the house. Then I creep to the top of the stairs and eventually realise I have Buddington all to myself.
When I get to the kitchen I take out a fork and plink it through the film on one of the ready meals I’d stocked up on yesterday. Then I place it in the microwave and wander round the room, idly picking up knick-knacks and examining them in a bid to divert my thoughts. I run my finger across the polka-dot spoon rest, then pick up the fridge magnet from Sorrento. My eyes drift slackly across to a drawer, which I open.
‘Gemma?’
‘ARGHH!’
I slam shut the drawer, before I spin round to be confronted by Belinda. She raises both eyebrows. ‘I only wondered if you wanted a G&T.’
‘Oh. Oh,’ I repeat. I glance at my curry. It feels rude not to. ‘Why not? It’s definitely past Wine o’clock, isn’t it?’
‘Wine o’clock? Gemma, this is Pissed o’clock.’ She holds up her drink. ‘If I’m on my sixth you can join me for your first. They’re not recreational in my case. I need a few to loosen up the joints before a dance lesson. My Moonwalk’s shocking otherwise.’
She pours me a G&T – with a healthy measure of G – and I take a sip. As my chest warms, this strikes me as a better alternative to sitting upstairs, with nothing to distract me except the memory of a boy I – mostly – stopped thinking about years ago.
As the evening unfolds, one G&T becomes four – and it’s not just the joints that loosen up. Belinda’s stories about Dan are impossible to resist, even if he’d burst a blood vessel if he could hear. She’s like a walking version of
Heat
magazine, she’s so indiscreet. Hours pass in minutes as the gin disappears and I gain a growing sense of being very, very drunk. And if I’m drunk, Belinda is positively plastered, something that became abundantly clear when she picked up a pair of tongs and plinked a used tea-bag into her drink instead of a slice of lemon.
‘Dja-ya know, half of the stuff I wrote – about men, I mean – the publishers wouldn’t even put in the book.’
‘Really? Why?’
She sloshes back her gin. ‘Despite the title, which my editor Angela insisted on, they wanted my book to be mainshtream. I wasn’t supposed to be some hairy-armpitted radical feminist,’ she slurs. ‘I was supposed to be
Everywoman
. The woman in the street. Of which a very large majority have been badly treated by men.’
‘You really think it’s a majority?’
She nearly spits out her drink. ‘
Of course
. The things the average man is capable of don’t bear thinking about. They’re
animals
. ALL of them.’
My skin prickles. Dan isn’t an animal, I’m certain of that. And Alex wasn’t either. Both are nothing but lovely. ‘I’m not sure I completely buy that, I must admit,’ I say. ‘Yes, there are idiots, but there are lots of good ones. I happen to love men, generally.’
‘You’ll learn,’ she snorts.
‘Don’t get me wrong, Belinda. I’m not some simpleton who believes in fairytales. I don’t even particularly want to get married myself.’
She swallows another large mouthful. ‘Dan mentioned that. Why not?’
‘Oh, a variety of reasons,’ I say vaguely, though in truth I never could pin down my unease about it, beyond the fact that my (still married) parents haven’t been the greatest advert.
‘The thing I find difficult to get my head around,’ I continue, ‘is how you can align your views with having a son.
He’s
a man.’
‘Nobody’s perfect,’ she laughs. ‘Besides, although I will always love him – hell, I’d jump in front of a bus for him – he’s been no angel either, you know. He’s his father’s son, after all. He’s changed his ways since he met you, but who’s to say that’ll last forever?’
Indignation ripples through me as I pour another drink, feeling as though I need something fortifying. ‘You mean you think he’ll treat
me
badly? Do the dirty on
me
?’
‘Oh look, I’ve got high hopes for you two. But it’s not beyond the realms, is it? Sorry, Gemma,’ she shrugs, looking far from it. ‘But that’s what men do. It’s that simple.’
I feel a surge of defiance. I’m aware that this is partly due to the booze, and partly because I feel so weird after today. But fundamentally, Dan is my boyfriend and I love him – and the idea that I have to defend him against his own mother is, frankly, awful.
I tell myself to get a grip and put a lid on it, so instead of spurting out something I might regret, I stand up and mutter something about needing the loo. I get into the hall and dig out my phone, before dialling Dan’s number, hearing it go to voicemail, and leaving a message.
‘Dan, are you on your way home yet?’ I hiss in hushed, drunken tones. ‘Your mother is . . . well, it’s all jusht getting out of hand. She’s talking all this nonshense about . . . look, it doeshn’t matter.’ To my alarm I note that I’m also slurring quite badly and entirely failing to get to my point. I compose myself. ‘If I’m honest, Dan, there was one moment when I felt like strangling your mother tonight. And unless you get home soon, I couldn’t rule it out.’
And then I look up and see Belinda standing at the doorway with an expression like the mother in Stephen King’s
Carrie
, just before she stabbed her in the shoulder.
Chapter 17
Dan
I have spent this evening in A&E with a seventy-nine-year-old lady called Jennifer, with whom I’ve been working for three months after her husband, a retired rail worker, died suddenly last year.
He’d looked after all their bills, so when she was left alone – grief-stricken and with no children to help her – she’d struggled to stay on top of them. For six months before she was referred to the Chapterhouse Centre, she’d been living on a friend’s sofa. Recently, after I’d found accommodation of her own for her, she’d been making good progress. Until tonight.
The accident had happened after Jennifer tried to make herself some proper, deep-fried chips – the ones her husband liked – but had fallen asleep in the living room and forgotten they were on the stove.
I arrived to find her in an ambulance and the house virtually destroyed. Thankfully, doctors think she’s going to be all right, but it’s fair to say it’s been a long night for all of us. All I want to do is jump in the car, fling on some tunes, fantasise that I’m in a Lamborghini and go home to kiss my girlfriend.
I turn on the phone and listen to Gemma’s message. She is angry, upset and so far from sober that her impassioned speech sounds like she’s simultaneously attempting to gargle with Listerine. By the time it ends, with Gemma threatening to inflict GBH on my mother, I am seriously concerned that the scene at home may resemble a Mexican street brawl.
I leap in the Fanny Magnet, fire her up and put my foot down.
Clearly, there would be some benefits to them not being Great Mates. I find the idea instinctively repellent anyway, perhaps because of the treasure-trove of mortifying information my mother delights in holding about me.
But they’re outweighed by the alternative horror of being stuck between the two women in my life, fighting a battle that would overwhelm a crack unit of UN peacekeeping forces.
As I head towards the Mersey Tunnel, I add as much throttle as I can. It’s like trying to win the Grand Prix in a compact roadsweeper. I’m in the tunnel for a quarter of a mile before I reach a trail of red tail-lights ahead and realise that there’s been a crash. My phone rings and I put it on speaker. It’s Pete.
‘I’m just phoning because I knew you’d want to hear how my coffee with Jade went.’
‘I’ve thought of little else,’ I reply. ‘Go on – did it go well?’
‘Depends on your definition of “well”. I didn’t fart, fall over or throw up on myself with nerves, so that was a plus. And the coffee was good. Also, I did ask Jade on a date . . .’
The response is painfully predictable. ‘She said no?’ I venture.
‘No, she said yes.’
My eyebrows jolt in surprise. ‘Really?’
‘Yes. It was excruciating,’ he sighs. ‘I said to her, as plainly as I could, “Why don’t we go out for a drink one night?” And she said: “Great idea. Who else shall we get to come?” So I said, “How about just you and me?” At which point she howled with laughter, slapped me on the shoulder and said, “Oh Pete, you are funny! People would get the wrong impression”.’
‘What did you say?’
‘It got complicated after that. I said: “What if the wrong impression was the right impression? And, you know, you and me were just out out.
Together
, you and me. And that
was
how it was”.’
‘Even I’m a bit lost . . .’
‘Then the pensioner next to us spilled his Americano on me and we had to leave. I’ve reeked like the skip outside Starbucks all day.’
The traffic starts to move as I make my excuses and end the call, before continuing with my journey out of the tunnel and onto the M53.
I’ve gone about half a mile when I become aware of a flashing blue light in the rearview mirror. Incredulous, since I was only going about four miles an hour over the speed limit – though not through lack of trying – I pull in and attempt to generate my most amenable expression.
I catch a glance of myself in the mirror and see that this makes me look shiftier than a man wearing a brown mac and carrying a box labelled
ACME Dynamite
.
I open the door.
It’s fair to say that nothing could have prepared me for the chain of events that follow. I have one leg out of the car when the air explodes into a thunderstorm of improbable action movie sounds – and three more cars screech up behind the others.