I am struck by the single, melancholic thought that I’d give my right lung for a night at the Royal Tandoori now; or to watch a movie at FACT, followed by a few beers in Bold Street. These simple pleasures are entirely out of reach.
Instead, my Saturday nights are spent in a Jim Royle slouch on the sofa, listening to the three women in my life take bets on who’ll win
Dancing with the Stars
while I shield my eyes from the phosphorescent glare of tans and teeth.
Gemma seemed at ease with this at first, but it’s obvious even she’s getting desperate for space now, for a glimmer of the Saturdays of yore.
With another weekend looming and nothing more than an extended
Take Me Out
on the horizon, I trudge to the photocopier in the Old School House and, when asked by Jade what we’re up to on Saturday, can only grunt in despair.
‘Get online and Google ideas for romantic evenings on a budget,’ she suggests.
‘Isn’t that a Pot Noodle and a shag?’ Pete offers, before looking around as if it wasn’t him.
Jade taps at her computer. ‘Here we go . . . “Stargazing: if it’s cold outside, bring blankets and a Thermos and look for constellations.” That sounds nice, doesn’t it?’
‘Love that kind of thing myself. Orion’s belt and all that,’ Pete mumbles, some way from sounding like Professor Brian Cox.
‘“Alternatively,’ Jade continues, ‘clear your living-room floor, put on some music and dance. You can slow dance, or boogie, burlesque or even try some break-dancing moves, if you’re feeling crazy!”’ She grins. ‘Are you feeling
kerrazy
, Dan?’
‘More than I can say after living in my mother’s house.’
The suggestions continue, encompassing the pedestrian (play board games), to the outlandish (roller skate round your garden to emulate Christmas ice-skating at Somerset House). However, a couple leap out.
I text Gemma.
You. Me. Saturday night. We’re staying in and I’m getting rid of my mother. You in? x
She responds immediately.
Sounds good. But where will we dispose of the body? x
‘Don’t worry about me,’ Mum insists as she hauls herself into a taxi clutching a bottle of Moët. ‘Rita’s hosting the book club tonight – they’re always late so you’ve got the run of the house. And I’ve told Mother to turn her hearing aid down.’ She gives a protracted wink before I shut the door.
Gemma drove Sadie to Pebble Cottage this afternoon to show her the place from the outside and analyse some crisis that, as far as I can tell, revolves around their boss coming to work in a Kia Picanto. By the time she returns at seven, I’ve got a risotto on the go, am in her favourite blue shirt, have splashed on some Christmas aftershave and have hit the button on the playlist to end all playlists. ‘Winter Winds’ by Mumford & Sons. ‘Sonnet’ by The Verve. ‘Tender’ by Blur. ‘Riptide’ by Vance Joy. All classics, all sexy without being obvious, all offering a slim chance that she might stop thinking about fixed interest rates for a night.
I hear the front door open and go out to meet her in the hall.
‘Hi there,’ she murmurs, as I kiss her on the lips. ‘I
like
that shirt.’
‘I know,’ I smirk. ‘I could pretend I threw on the first thing I could find, but this is actually a flimsy ruse to try to work my way into your erogenous zones.’
She giggles. ‘How long until dinner?’
‘Ten minutes.’
She darts upstairs and returns twenty-five minutes later looking so devastatingly sexy that, for a moment, I can do nothing else but stand and stare at her. The slippers and sweatpants of the last few Saturdays are replaced by a flowery dress, hair done up like a funky version of Audrey Hepburn’s, all loose and wispy. She glances at the table, which I’ve covered with candles in a shamelessly corny attempt to enhance the mood.
‘This looks lovely,’ she says.
‘So do you.’ I reach out to take her hand but she ducks away.
‘Before we go any further, can you just sign here?’ She waves a paper in my face. ‘I’ve finally got it through from Annabel, the solicitor.’
I sign on the dotted line. ‘What am I signing away exactly?’
‘You know how in
Fifty Shades of Grey
, a contract is signed so that one party becomes a sex slave?’
‘Oh yes?’
‘This is nothing like that, just a contract to say we’ll pay for the work they do.’
I place the paper on a work surface, out of sight. ‘Right, now that’s out of the way, can we resume our Romantic Night On A Budget? No distractions. No lunacy from my mother. Nothing but you and me.’
‘Definitely,’ she whispers.
As Gemma would say, it couldn’t be more perfect.
Until the oven explodes.
Okay, it doesn’t actually explode, but the crash from somewhere inside is genuinely cataclysmic. I dive to the oven and open the door, sweat bubbling on my brow as I’m hit by a blast of heat.
A string of expletives spring from my mouth as it becomes apparent that the dish into which I piled my tenderly-prepared, oven-baked risotto is not in fact ovenproof. It now consists of approximately four hundred pieces, while the risotto simmers obnoxiously on the bottom of the oven.
‘Okay. Don’t panic,’ Gemma says, like she always does when she panics. Then she leaps over to help me try and scoop it up. Sadly, neither of us are bastions of cool-headed efficiency. We both look around frantically. We both grab a tea-towel. We both shove our hands in simultaneously to try to save the day, which has the converse effect of producing a cack-handed, Punch and Judy-style brawl. Which Gemma loses.
The shriek as her wrist plunges into thick, red-hot risotto is comparable to the mating call of a giant cockatoo, after six years in solitary confinement with only a battered copy of
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
for company.
I drag her to the sink and thrust her arm under the tap. It takes several minutes before she stops screaming, jigging up and down, and contemplating amputation. ‘You okay?’ I ask.
She looks at her hand, under the gushing, freezing water and breathes out. ‘Think so.’
She removes her hand. ‘ARRRGGGHHH!’
‘I’m going to have to take you to A&E,’ I decide grimly as she thrusts it into the water again.
She pretends to weep. ‘But I want my champagne . . .’
I kiss her head. ‘I’ll see if we’ve got a flask.’
The rest of the night is spent in the Countess of Chester Hospital’s A&E department. I am stone cold sober. Gemma is stone cold sober (she gave up on the flask). Which, on a Saturday night, makes us a novelty. Added to that is the fact that my girlfriend does not fall into a category you might describe as Good With Pain.
I can’t deny her arm looks very sore. Equally, her complaining is as relentless and unyielding as the talking clock. I am updated on average three times a minute as to the current state of play; whether the painkillers are working, or the ice pack melting.
I put my arm around her as she winces in another wave of agony and a text arrives from Mum:
MORE CHAMPAGNE IN FRIDGE IF U LIKE. NOT TOO MUCH 4 U THO – DN’T WANT PERFORMANCE ISSUES!
I stare into the middle distance as a merry band of hen-doers staggers into the waiting room, led by a bride-to-be, whose veil and L-plate are set off by an ankle dripping with blood.
‘I was going to ask you to marry me tonight as well,’ I say.
Gemma manages a smile and nudges me in the ribs. ‘Bugger off,’ she mumbles, snuggling up to me as I hold her ice pack against her arm and wonder when we’re ever going to have a break.
Chapter 23
Gemma
It’s a good thing I have such a high pain threshold or I’d find it difficult to talk about anything other than the agony I’m in. As it is, I maintain a stoic dignity throughout the evening, apart from to ask if anyone’s got stronger painkillers. Like an epidural.
I wake the next morning, my arm still hurting but significantly better than it was. I’m feeling a bit low about things. Dan opens his eyes and kisses me.
‘I know living with your mum was all my idea,’ I tell him, ‘but it’s getting a bit much now, isn’t it?’
He pushes himself up on his elbows. ‘Don’t be too down about last night. It was just . . . unfortunate.’
‘It’s not only that. I can see how stressed out the whole thing is making you.’
He frowns. ‘Now you’re making me feel guilty. Look, we’ve stuck this out for two months – we can do a bit more. And as for Mum, I just need to be more tolerant. I mean, I love her to bits and I’m grateful for everything she’s done for me. I just need to remind myself of that, next time she does the Hokey Cokey around the living room.’
I can’t help but smile.
‘Loath as I am to admit it,’ he continues, ‘you were right to suggest we move back. It was the only option. And it’s going to be worth it.’
‘Do you really think so?’
‘I do,’ he says, and for the first time since we got here, he seems to mean it.
I’m about to kiss him when my phone rings. I prop myself up and glance at the screen.
‘Sorry, it’s my mum,’ I tell him. ‘I’m going to take this, I haven’t spoken to her since last week.’ I press answer. ‘Hi there.’
She answers in a low, secretive voice, as if she works for the French Resistance. ‘Are you alone?’
‘Just here with Dan, why?’
‘Okay. Hmm. Don’t worry,’ she says. So obviously, I worry. I catch Dan’s eye and shake my head as I get out of bed and wander onto the landing, before locking myself in the privacy of the main bathroom.
‘I’m all ears,’ I sigh.
‘I’ve just had a phone call.’ She hesitates. ‘It was from
Alex
.’
I suddenly need to sit down. Unfortunately, the toilet seat I’d registered as closed is anything but, and I plummet, bum first, into the pan, leaving my legs protruding like two chopsticks in a chicken chow mein.
‘Gemma? Gemma, are you there?’
I clamber up with a dripping wet rear end, try to catch my breath and work out how to play this. ‘Alex who?’
‘Alex
Monroe
,’ she says, clearly unable to believe I have a big enough social circle to include more than one person called Alex. ‘Your
old boyfriend
.’
‘Oh, how strange,’ I say casually, my heart thundering. She doesn’t respond. ‘Well . . . how was he?’
‘He seemed fine. Nice as ever. It just took me by surprise, that’s all. I mean, doesn’t it you? That he should phone up after all this time? I thought someone must’ve died.’
I wriggle out of my pyjama bottoms, grab a towel and wrap it round my waist. ‘Did he say what he was phoning for?’
‘Yes. He said he was back in the UK with work and wanted your phone number. He said he’d like to go for a coffee and “catch up”.’ The last two words are laden with meaning and disapproval.
I swallow. ‘Did you give it to him?’
‘No, I said I’d have to phone and ask your permission,’ she replies indignantly. ‘Because you were
buying a house with your boyfriend
.’
I am dying to know his reaction to that one, but restrain myself from asking. She offers nothing.
‘I don’t think you needed to make
that
big a deal of it,’ I mumble. ‘That makes it sound as if I’d have something to feel guilty about just by talking to him.’
‘So you want me to give it to him,’ she decides.
‘Well, I don’t mind either way,’ I splutter. ‘I mean, why would I mind? It’s not like it’s inappropriate. It’d only be inappropriate if there was anything still going on between us – and the fact is, I haven’t seen him in years!’
‘Okay. I’ll give it to him then.’
My stomach lurches. ‘Hang on, maybe you’ve got a point.’
‘I thought so. Dan might get jealous.’
‘He’s not the jealous type. Besides, all we’re talking about is a phone call.’
‘He said coffee. And a
catch up
.’ She might as well replace those words with ‘oral sex in the back of a stretch limo’.
‘Even that.’
‘Do you really think that’d be appropriate, Gemma?’ I can tell her lips are pursed without even seeing them.
‘Oh Mum, I haven’t seen him for years, it’s not like I’m going to run off with him and leave Dan in the lurch.’
‘So I should give it to him? He’s phoning me back later today.’
My heart surges. ‘I see.’
‘So what’s it to be, Gemma? Come on, I’ve got a bacon sandwich waiting for me here. Is it a yes or a no?’
Chapter 24
Dan
When Gemma returns from the bathroom, we head downstairs to find Mum at the kitchen table jabbing at her laptop like it’s a wounded animal she’s worried might leap up and bite her. I swear I think an Etch-A-Sketch would be too advanced for her.
‘What happened to you two last night? Did you decide to go out on the raz, after all? I came back to a scene of devastation.’
Gemma fills her in and Mum’s face crumples with disgust. ‘Oh look, this is totally ridiculous,’ she announces.
‘What is?’ I ask.
‘Just let me give you the money for the deposit on your house!’ she shrieks. ‘You can stop saving. You can leave Buddington. You won’t have to put up with
me
for a moment longer. You can simply go and buy your dream home, then live happily ever after. Which is how it should be.’
Gemma glances at me. ‘Belinda, it’s a lot of money.’
‘Gemma, darling, if there’s one good thing that came out of my craphole of a marriage, it was a book that made me some cash. And now there’s more coming.’ She gestures at the laptop. ‘The publicity schedule is already going wild. I’m in New York at the end of the year, then London. Aside from that, I
want
to give you this money, as my gift.’
When Gemma turns to me, the hope in her eyes is almost –
almost
– enough to stop me doing what I know is my only option.
‘Thank you, Mum. But I know I speak for both of us when I say we can’t accept it.’
Gemma slides onto a chair, underlining the fact that I probably don’t speak for both of us.
‘We want to do this all on our own,’ I state.