Mutton, page 13
I don’t ever want my daughter to be my best friend. I want my daughter to be my daughter. And I really, really don’t want to be hanging out with my daughter and her mates when she’s at university.
But ‘Not at all!’ I say. ‘Help yourself.’ It occurs to me that, children aside, nobody ever rootles inside the fridge saying they’re starving any more. Certainly not Gaby, and increasingly not me. It’s incredibly refreshing: I feel like Annie has given me a mini-present merely by being here and being hungry.
‘Or,’ I say impulsively, ‘I could cook us something.’
‘Got any pasta?’ says Annie. ‘I saw you had bacon. I fancy carbonara. Mind you, when don’t I fancy carbonara?’
I could hug Annie and her normal impulses, her fearless embrace of the carbs, her appetite. ‘Yes!’ I say. ‘I’ve got the other ingredients, I think. Coming up!’
‘Yum,’ says Annie happily, pouring herself a second glass of wine. ‘Now look, before we go on and get distracted. Thing is, I’ve written some porn.’
‘Ah. OK.’ I like the way she’s saying this, much as someone might say, ‘I’ve written some poetry.’
‘And I wanted to know – you know about this sort of thing – should I publish it myself, or get a publisher, and if it’s “get a publisher”, then how?’
‘What kind of porn?’
‘Oh,’ says Annie, laughing and winking at me. ‘You know. The usual. Positions. Name calling while pulling the old hair. You dirty slag,’ she growls, in a convincing and unsettling man-voice that takes me aback. ‘Bit of bumming. Three-ways. Tits. I love tits, don’t you? Nice pair of knockers never hurt anyone. Couple of bigger group scenes. Umm, what else? Can’t remember. Pretty vanilla really, though there’s some dogging in it. Old school!’
She laughs again. I really like Annie, despite – or maybe because of – the unexpected and faintly startling turn the conversation has taken. She’s like a proper person. As soon as I have the thought, I think, ‘Why don’t I think that about my oldest friend?’
‘Ah,’ I repeat. ‘Right. Do you, I mean have you …’ I start laughing too. ‘Autobiographical, is it?’
‘Hahaha,’ laughs Annie. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
‘I really would, actually,’ I say, slicing up some bacon. ‘I’m dying to.’
‘Only some of it is. Let’s just say Mervyn and I keep ourselves busy,’ says Annie, winking again. ‘Very tame, aren’t they, the young people? Did you read that book?’
‘Yes. And yes,’ I say. ‘I felt like a perv for thinking it was … adolescent. But then I, er, I like real porn.’ The Man From The Connaught flashes into my head again: lost afternoons. But I’m getting better at pushing him away.
‘High fucking five!’ says Annie unexpectedly, slapping my hand and spilling some wine. ‘Oops, sorry, Clara. Here, give us the kitchen roll. It’s just, nobody ever says that. I like real porn too. My porn’s proper. It’s dirty.’
‘Good for you, writing it,’ I say, meaning it. ‘Let me think about the best thing to do. I could certainly give you some names.’
‘Thanks,’ Annie says. ‘I knew you’d know.’ She takes a sip of wine. ‘Your friend,’ she says. ‘Gaby, is it?’
‘Yep. She’s staying with us for a bit, in Charlie’s old quarters – poor Charlie’s on the sofa, now he’s back. She’s from LA. Well, she’s from here, but a long time ago. We were at school together.’
‘What’s her age, if you don’t mind me asking? Here, chuck me the Parmesan, I’ll grate it.’
‘That’s a funny question,’ I say, handing her the cheese and thinking how nice this companionable approach to cooking is. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘She’s gorgeous,’ Annie says. ‘Absolutely gorgeous. That’s some work she’s had. Five-star. Don’t get me wrong. But she’s somewhere between you and me, right? Age-wise.’
‘Er,’ I say, feeling intensely disloyal. ‘Something like that, I think. Maybe. Yes.’
‘Hm,’ says Annie.
‘How on earth could you tell?’ I ask. I’m genuinely amazed: if I met Gaby for the first time, I’d say late thirties. I can’t believe that Annie – Annie, of all people – has some particular insight, some radar that I, beady-eyed I, don’t possess.
‘Oh, I can always tell,’ says Annie. ‘Usually by their reaction to me.’
‘How on earth do you mean?’ I ask.
‘They don’t like me. I’m how they might have ended up if they ever thought it was possible to have fun past forty and keep eating their dinners. If they were happy in themselves, you know. I’m not saying it in a big-headed way – I’m just happy, always have been. They’re half sorry for me: size 18 on a good day, tits in a push-up bra, control pants up to here, tarty dress, too much slap, do my own roots, when I can be arsed. But it half freaks them out. I don’t mind,’ she says kindly. ‘I get it. They think that at our age there’s only one way of being contented and of getting blokes to look at you, and that it involves a ton of cash and a ton of pain. I’m like some horrible reminder that it ain’t necessarily so. So they don’t like meeting me. I unsettle them.’ She shrugs. ‘I wouldn’t be happy to meet me either, if I had scars behind my ears and only ever ate bleeding egg-white omelettes. Here, more wine?’
‘Thanks,’ I say, holding out my glass.
‘I’ll have to go, after this,’ Annie says as I dish out enormous – and why not? – portions of pasta. ‘I’m not against it, you know. Surgery, I mean. It’s stupid to be against it. I had my tits done when I was thirty-five.’ She holds her bosoms to illustrate her point. ‘They looked amazing for a bit, but then I was trying for Tilly and I had the implants removed, which was just as well, it turned out, what with all those leaky ones.’
‘Gaby doesn’t have implants,’ I say.
‘I think you may be mistaken there,’ Annie says, laughing. ‘But good on her. That whole “ooh, it’s unnatural” thing – that’s just stupid, isn’t it? General anaesthetic is bloody unnatural. Dentistry. Any surgery. Die in childbirth, eh, because otherwise it would be unnatural.’ She snorts. ‘What a load of old bollocks. I don’t have a problem with it. Just with some of the people who have it done. Lot of them are mentals,’ she says matter-of-factly. ‘Hacking away at bits of their bodies like that. You know. It’s not nothing, is it?’ She puts on a whiny, wheedling voice and says, ‘ “Don’t like it, chop it off.” Urgh.’
Annie’s barely drawn breath and now, having wolfed down her pasta and another half-glass of wine, she’s off, like a whirlwind, if a whirlwind had cheap-looking shoes that clacked. I feel weirdly uplifted as I kiss her goodbye. It’s not that I’d like to be her, but after two months of Gaby, her approach to life seems refreshingly, giddyingly straightforward. It’s joyous, is what it is. Gaby’s – for all the money and the glorious looks and the hot boyfriend – seems, by comparison, curiously joy-lite.
Gaby, of course, disagrees. When she reappears the following afternoon – looking half dead, as she always does after nights out with Ben – the second thing she says, after ‘Hello’, is, ‘Who was that ghastly woman last night? I didn’t know where to look.’
‘I know her from the boys’ primary school, years ago,’ I say. ‘I like her. She stayed and had some supper.’
‘What, from a trough?’
‘Gaby! She’s nice. She’s funny and straightforward. She’s just herself. I like her,’ I repeat. ‘Also, she’s written some porn.’
‘Ha!’ snorts Gaby. ‘Yeah, right. Because she’d know all about that.’
‘Well, why wouldn’t she?’
‘Ha,’ Gaby says again, a withering expression on her face. ‘I don’t think so.’
‘Very sisterly,’ I say. ‘Why wouldn’t she have or like or know about sex? I wouldn’t particularly want to look like her, but so what? There are loads of people I wouldn’t want particularly to look like. I can still appreciate that they kind of look great, in their own way. Doesn’t mean you have to be mean about them.’
‘She’d top my list,’ says Gaby. ‘She doesn’t look great – have you gone mad? She looks like a desperate old slapper.’
‘She’s not a million years older than you,’ I say. ‘And anyway, why’s it making you so cross?’
Gaby shrugs. ‘To let yourself go like that,’ she says. ‘She doesn’t have any self-respect.’
‘Oh, come on. That’s just not true. She’s incredibly confident, as it happens. I was just thinking, she’d be a great role model, in a way. And she’s the size a lot of women are. And there’s a difference between self-respect and self-denial. She’s not self-denying – I’ll give you that. But so? It’s no skin off your nose, is it? Why does it make her ghastly?’
‘I just didn’t like her,’ Gaby says, picking up on my increasingly narked tone and giving me a tired smile.
Because I am not always as kind as I might be, I say, ‘Ben seemed to take to her.’
‘The fucking twat,’ Gaby says instantly. ‘Couldn’t take his fucking eyes off her. I made a joke on the way to the restaurant. I assumed, like a normal person, that he was staring because she was so ghast … so ridiculous, and that he’d take the piss out of her. But no. “Sexy,” if you please. “Weirdly hot, MILF.” Well, whatever MILF is called when it’s menopausal.’
‘I knew it,’ I say, laughing. ‘That’s why you’re in such a rage. I wouldn’t assume it means he wants to shag her. He was just making an observation.’
I pause and drink my tea, weighing up my options. I can’t not say what I am itching to say, so I say it.
‘Also, I really wonder about what’s going on in your head sometimes. Seriously. You’d be happier if your boyfriend “took the piss” out of a woman he’d only just met – a woman who happened to be my guest, in my house – based on what she looked like? Fuck’s sake, Gaby.’
Gaby has the good grace to blush. ‘Yeah, sorry about that,’ she mutters. ‘I don’t really mean it.’ She pauses. ‘Well, actually, I sort of do. I don’t mean to insult your mates, obviously. But women like that are like a slap in my face.’
‘Eh?’
‘All this,’ she says, pointing down at herself. ‘All this,’ she repeats, now pointing at her face, her teeth, her hair. ‘And what – so my boyfriend, who by the way thinks I’m thirty-four, says he fancies some fifty-something slapper who’s a size 30?’
‘More like 18,’ I say. ‘Same sort of size you used to be, Gabs.’
‘Who’s got bingo wings like, like a fat Batman, and two chins and more make-up on than a fucking tranny?’ Gaby continues, voice rising, ignoring me. ‘You’d be pissed off too. We have to stop talking now. I’m pissing myself off even more just thinking about it again.’ She takes an angry sip of her coffee. ‘Urgh. Who’d walk around like that, looking desperate, like she’d be grateful if somebody knocked her to the ground and fucked her?’
‘Stop,’ I say. ‘You really do need to stop talking.’
‘What?’ says Gaby. ‘It’s true. She’d probably pay them. Ask them if they had any mates.’
‘Stop talking,’ I say. ‘You’re teenage-levels of jealous. It’s pathetic. It’s making you sound like a crazy person.’
I want to ask Gaby if she thinks the way she looks has made her more insecure, but it seems like a mad question: the obvious answer is no. How could becoming more beautiful than you ever used to be make you insecure? How could it make you sound so desperate – so absolutely the definition of the thing she accuses Annie of being?
And yet: here’s all the evidence I need.
‘Go and write your letter to Bernard Frossage,’ I say. ‘Cheer yourself up.’
‘What kind of porn?’ asks Gaby.
‘Annie? Oh, you know, just stuff. Three-ways, I think she mentioned. Bit of dogging – very Nineties.’
‘Married, is she?’
‘Yep.’
‘What’s he like?’
‘I can’t really remember. City type. Corpulent. Just leave it, eh?’
Gaby heaves an enormous sigh. ‘Yeah, I think I will. It’s not good for me. I’m probably still wasted from last night,’ she adds optimistically. ‘Don’t mind me. Having a funny turn. It’s just I sometimes wonder if I’ve … If I’m on the right track.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. But actually, I don’t think it is, and I have to force a smile as she shuffles upstairs.
13
One more date with Bel: I’m going to try and find him sexy. I’m going to really make an effort before giving up the ghost. Strange, apt expression, that, and of course it isn’t Bel that’s the ghost.
Jack and Sky have a double free period first thing this morning, so I’m making them a cooked breakfast before heading off to the West End to buy myself a new outfit. I feel like I owe it to Bel to make an effort. One last try, to atone for the unforgivable way I have made him comical in my head. We are not going to ‘our’ table in Claridge’s’ grown-up, sepulchral restaurant tonight, but, for the first time, to a trendier, younger place in town. Bel (Belated?) in a more normal context: I always think hotels are like little islands – lovely, luxurious, safe-feeling little islands that bear no relation to the Outside World, and that by extension anything that happens in hotels is somehow not quite real. This will be Bel on land. I’m looking forward to it, in a way. Plus, the restaurant doesn’t have an upstairs with a super-king bed and a marble bathroom, which I find less pressurizing.
Sausages, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes. ‘How do you want your eggs?’ I ask the children. ‘You need to coordinate your answers because despite appearances I’m not a short-order chef.’
‘Fried,’ says Jack. ‘Please.’
‘Um … could we have them scrambled?’ asks Sky. ‘Fried eggs are so … fried.’
‘Are you all right, Sky? You’re a bit pale,’ I say. She’s actually sheet-white, with a thin sheen of sweat overlay. She looks like a doll made of wax.
‘I’m fine,’ says Sky.
‘Hm. You don’t look that fine. You need some breakfast,’ I say. ‘Fry-ups are the solution to most things. Scrambleds coming up. Put the toast on, Jack, would you?’
‘Did Gabbro write to Dad yet?’ asks Sky. ‘I really think she could help him out, big time. I think they should talk.’
‘Gabbro, is it?’ I laugh, amused.
‘Yeah. And she calls me Massicot.’ Sky smiles. ‘We’ve been hanging out a bit. Massicot is The Matriarch’s friend – her sidekick, really.’
‘Right,’ I say. ‘That’s nice. Anyway, she’s just upstairs finishing her letter now, I think,’ I say. ‘It’s never taken anyone so long to write anything – she’s been at it for days now.’
‘She’s posted it!’ announces Gaby, framed in the kitchen door and waving what appears to be a dissertation at us. She does her weird arm-greeting to Sky, who does it back at her. I ignore this.
‘Have you written the book for him?’ I ask. ‘And what’s that you’re holding, then?’
‘Just jotted down some ideas,’ she says. ‘I really hope he can make use of them. Oh my God, are you making a fry-up? Can I have some? Is there enough?’
‘You can have mine,’ says Sky. ‘I’m not that hungry.’
‘Nonsense,’ I say. ‘There’s masses, enough for everybody. Put some more toast on, Jack.’
‘I’m like a slave,’ Jack says to himself. ‘I’m the Bread Servant.’
‘You can be the Kettle Elf as well,’ I tell him. ‘No, Jack – fill it up properly. Otherwise you’re boiling two inches of water, which is no use to man nor beast.’
‘Jawohl, mein Führer,’ says Jack crossly, as though I’d ordered him to spring-clean the house from top to bottom using his own hair as a mop. Why do teenagers behave like you’ve violated their human rights when you ask them to help around the house? They really are extraordinary.
‘So,’ Sky says excitedly. ‘What have you said, Gabbro?’
‘I’m trying to think of ways in which the ramifications of the siege impact on the Quest. Obviously, there are lots of issues that need to be addressed there,’ Gaby says.
‘Obviously,’ I say.
‘Mum loves this chat,’ says Jack. ‘She’s totally into it.’
‘And they really need resolving, otherwise – I mean, I totally see what he means: the plot gets stuck,’ Gaby continues. ‘Dead end. But I think I may have found the answer. Well, I’d imagine Bernard’ – she flushes, as if she’d called him something intimate – ‘has thought of it too, by now. But I think it was right to tell him, don’t you? In case he hasn’t?’
‘God, yeah, totally,’ says Sky.
‘And then there’s a load of other stuff,’ says Gaby. ‘I mean – the Plumèd Few, for starters. They are the Amphiboles’ warrior elite, and Horno badly needs them on his side. Which means, if you ask me, that a pact with Bold Olivine is inevitable. She leads them, after all.’ Here she pauses for dramatic emphasis. ‘It must be so,’ she adds, in what is clearly meant to be a dramatic fashion.
‘Oh my God. A pact with Bold Olivine?’ Sky asks. ‘You’re kidding, right? I mean – how? Actually – woah. Tell me in two minutes. Excuse me, just a sec.’
And she rushes out of the room.
‘Sky’s got a bug,’ says Jack. ‘One of those puking ones.’
‘What? How do you mean?’ I ask.
‘She’s puked a lot in the last few days,’ Jack says matter-of-factly, just as I put his breakfast down in front of him.
‘Well, she’s had food poisoning recently, but it doesn’t last that long,’ I say.
Sky reappears, her cheeks now pink. ‘God, that’s better,’ she says. ‘Sorry.’
‘I’m going to make you an appointment at the doctor’s,’ I say. ‘Jack’s right – you may have some strange bug. That’s a long time to be unwell.’
‘Anyway, anyway,’ Sky says to Gaby. ‘How would she ever countenance a pact with Horno, of all men? He was her raper.’
‘He is indeed her nemesis,’ says Gaby. ‘It’s kind of hard to get your head around. But there is a way.’
