Before I Met You (39 page)

‘Nice,’ said John, sauntering towards his pitch with a big cardboard box in his arms and gesturing towards the pile of vomit.

Betty blanched at the sound of his voice. It was the first time she’d seen him since the morning after she’d slept with Dom.

‘I know,’ she said, sneering. ‘Gross.’

John put the box down on his stand and turned his back to her while he untaped it and started pulling out records. Betty
stood
for a moment, feeling she should say something, something to bring them back on track.

‘Are you cross with me?’ she asked eventually.

John turned and glanced at her over his shoulder. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not at all. Why, should I be?’

She shrugged. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘You just seem a bit …
offish
.’

‘Well, you know, that’s me. Brightly by name, miserably by nature.’ His voice was tight and cold.

‘So we’re OK, are we?’

He shrugged. ‘Course we are. Right as rain. Have a good day now,’ he said patronisingly, before turning again and sauntering away from her.

Betty waited a beat, to see if he would turn and give her one of his smiles, the ones he saved just for her that made her feel like she’d won the lottery. But he didn’t. She sighed and headed for work.

‘Now, listen,’ said Amy, sliding her arms into a battered leather jacket and pulling her hair out from the back collar. ‘Tomorrow night. I’m having a party. Here. Like, huge big fuck-off thing, OK? Party starts at eight, but I’ll need you here earlier, to settle the kids, say about six o’clock. Once they’re in bed you can come and join the party, but stay sober, yeah. Someone will have to be able to drive a car in an emergency. And then I’ll need you to stay overnight. OK? And do the kids on Sunday morning. Maybe even into lunchtime.’ She pulled up her sleeve and looked at her watch. ‘So, I’m off to the salon. I’ll be back at twelve. Dom’s popping over. He says ten, but I don’t know,
who knows
, maybe not at all.’

‘Oh,’ said Betty, her heart starting to race, ‘any particular reason?’

‘He says he wants to see the kids. But if you could somehow get him outta here before I get back, I would love you for ever.
I’ve
got crazy heaps of shit to do and I am
not
in the mood for seeing his pitiful face. I told him just an hour, so you don’t need to feel bad about kicking him out. But don’t say anything to the kids, OK? Don’t wanna get their hopes up and then have them dashed because Daddy Dearest is comatose in some skanky blond’s bed. Right,
kids
!’ she yelled over her shoulder. ‘Mommy’s going out for a coupla hours. Betty’s here. Be good. Love you!’ She didn’t wait for the children to acknowledge her parting words, just slung a bag over her shoulder, grabbed a bunch of keys and hurtled out of the house.

Betty took a deep breath and headed into the kitchen. Donny was eating a bowl of Cheerios and Mina, the maid (who Amy always referred to as though she were a kindly houseguest, just there for the fun of it, rather than a paid employee), was spooning mashed banana into the baby’s mouth. Acacia, the toddler, was wandering around with an unbuttoned babygro on and a milk bottle hanging from between her teeth. The maid smiled gratefully at Betty when she saw her walk in and passed her the bowl of mashed banana, before going to the kitchen sink to wash her hands.

‘Morning, guys!’ said Betty.

‘Morning,’ grumbled Donny, who was not, Betty was coming to learn, a morning person.

‘Morning, Acacia!’ She smiled at the toddler, who beamed at her, and in doing so lost her grip on the milk bottle, which fell to the floor, squirting milk in pretty much a full circle across the floor.

‘Oh-oh,’ sang Betty, pulling off sheets of kitchen roll and mopping it up. ‘Oh-oh.’

‘Silly Cashie,’ said Donny, smiling.

‘No,’ said Betty. ‘Cashie’s not silly. Cashie’s just smiling. Aren’t you, my lovely? Just smiling at Betty.’ Acacia smiled again. And then weed on the floor.

‘Oh!’ said Betty. ‘No nappy. Mummy left you without a
nappy
!’ She beamed and grabbed some more kitchen roll. ‘Oh, look at that, look at all that wee-wee.’ Acacia wrinkled her nose at Betty and smiled again.

‘Naughty Cashie,’ said Donny, banging his spoon against the kitchen table in delight. ‘Naughty, naughty Cashie.’

Astrid, seeing what her big brother was doing, grabbed her plastic spoon and began copying him, banging her spoon against her bowl of mashed banana, bang bang bang, until the bowl dropped off the table and onto the kitchen floor, turning one hundred and eighty degrees in its descent, depositing gooey banana all over the floor. Seeing her breakfast disappear out of sight, the baby began to cry. Betty took a deep breath. What sort of idiots had three children, she thought to herself. What sort of ridiculous fools would fill up their beautiful house with people intent on spilling stuff and pissing everywhere?

She breathed in once, twice, three times and then she rose up onto her feet, her hands full of balled up, piss-soaked kitchen roll and smiled her Happy Betty smile. ‘Oh,’ she said, brightly, ‘never mind. Never mind.’ And then she turned to the sink to rinse out a cloth and jumped an inch in the air when she saw Dom standing in the doorway.

‘Morning all,’ he said, pulling his hands from his pockets and sauntering in.

‘
Daddy
!’ cried Donny, leaping to his feet and sending a spoonful of Cheerios flying across the table as he did so.

Dom grabbed Donny and threw him in the air, then held him aloft on his shoulder like a football trophy. Donny smiled triumphantly and squeezed Dom’s head between his hands.

Betty smiled and said, ‘You’re early.’

‘I’ve been waiting round the corner,’ he said, ‘waiting for the Wicked W –’ he stopped himself, ‘waiting for Mummy to go.’

He looked dishevelled, and even from halfway across the room, Betty could smell stale alcohol emanating from him. ‘Have you slept?’ she asked.

He smiled sheepishly and shook his head. ‘Nah,’ he said, ‘we, er … well, we got the sleeper last night, turned into a bit of a party, not much sleeping, let’s put it that way …’

‘Ah.’ Betty nodded sagely. ‘So, how long have you been waiting round the corner?’

‘About an hour,’ he shrugged, ‘maybe longer. My mate owns the pub round the corner. He let me hang out there.’

She nodded again.

He looked at her wide-eyed with innocence. ‘He’s been mainlining me strong coffee.’

She gave him a look that said she didn’t care, she wasn’t his wife, she wasn’t his mother, it was up to him how he lived his life.

In response he threw her a puppy-dog look and said, ‘Any eggs in the fridge?’

‘No idea,’ she said, ‘I’ve been here only two minutes and I’ve spent the full extent of that two minutes clearing stuff up off the floor. Why don’t you have a look?’

He lowered Donny to the floor and shuffled towards the fridge. Betty dropped to her knees and mopped up the mashed banana, then the milky Cheerios.

‘So,’ she said, standing up, ‘how did it go? The secret location?’

‘Waste of time,’ he said. ‘Total waste of time. Gav didn’t show. Tommy spent the whole time on the phone to his missus. And me and Bryce just played poker and drank Schnapps.’

‘Oh,’ said Betty.

‘Yeah.’ Dom pulled a sliced loaf out of the bread bin and took out two pieces of bread. ‘Exactly.’

He dropped the bread into a big shiny toaster like the ones they have in Italian cafés and started noisily pulling drawers open and shut. ‘Frying pan?’ he asked.

‘No idea,’ Betty said. ‘Didn’t you used to live here?’

‘Live here? Yes. Cook here? Not very often. A-ha,’ he said
victoriously
, ‘found it!’ He pulled open the door of the big pink Smeg fridge and stared into it. ‘So,’ he said, ‘lovely Betty. How’ve you been?’

‘Fine,’ she said.

He reached into the fridge and brought out a box of eggs. He peered at it and said; ‘Use by the fifteenth of June. What date is it today?’

‘It’s the sixteenth,’ she said.

‘What do you reckon? Can I eat these?’

‘Of course you can,’ she said, wiping mush from the baby’s mouth.

‘Coolio,’ he said, juggling two eggs in the air and just about catching them again. ‘Don, wanna crack an egg?’

‘Yeah!’ said Donny, immediately grabbing his step and pulling it over to the hob. ‘Can I crack both of them?’

‘Course you can, mate, course you can. Betty? Want an egg?’

‘No thank you’ she said primly.

‘Suit yourself.’

Betty watched Dom bouncing around the kitchen, hyper as a child, spilling things, treating Donovan as if he were a toy, unable to work out how to light the gas, burning the toast, leaving crumbs in the butter, splattering the hob with hot oil, and she felt suddenly intensely annoyed. It was like every time she saw him he was acting out a different role. She thought of the guy she’d spent the night with three days ago, the calm, thoughtful guy who’d cooked her a roast chicken as if it was the simplest thing in the world, who’d seduced her so smoothly and convincingly. Then she thought of the drunk idiot in the Groucho, the one who’d squeezed her bum and called her ‘the nanny’ to impress his stupid friend. She thought of the time she’d seen him screaming down the phone at someone, hard and aggressive, through his back window, and then she thought again of the blurred photos on the front page of the
Mirror
a few weeks ago. It occurred to her, suddenly and overpoweringly, that she had
absolutely
no idea who he was. Right now he was acting out the role of the crazy dad, the fun guy who showed up unexpectedly and created havoc. And she didn’t like it, not one bit.

Finally he sat down at the kitchen table with a plate of toast and eggs. He grabbed a bottle of ketchup and showily, ostentatiously, covered the whole lot in red sauce, like he was trying to prove he was a real regular guy, the salt of the earth. ‘There,’ he said, rubbing his hands together and smiling, ‘look at that. Lovely stuff.’

Betty pulled Astrid out of her baby seat and put her on her hip.

‘So,’ said Dom, ‘what are we going to do today?’

The question was directed at everyone in the room.

‘Football! Football!’ shouted Donovan.

‘Excellent idea.’

‘Erm, listen, Dom,’ Betty began. ‘Amy said she’ll be back at twelve and that she didn’t really … that it would be good if …’

‘Yeah. I get it. I’ll be gone by then. Don’t you worry.’

‘Actually,’ she continued, ‘maybe it would be better to keep the kids here. You know? Keep them at home. It’s only a couple of hours.’ She fiddled with the hem of Astrid’s dress while she spoke.

Dom stared at her blankly for a moment and then he said, ‘What? You think I’m going to steal him?’

Betty grimaced. ‘No, of course not. Just you might get carried away, you know, forget the time. And Amy wants to get the kids straight in the car when she gets back. I think she’ll be really cross if Donny’s not here.’

Dom laughed a false, hollow laugh and said, ‘I am capable of telling the time, Betty. I’m not a complete moron.’

‘I never said you were.’

‘Well, yeah, but you
implied
it.’

‘No, it’s just, you know, you haven’t slept, you’ve been drinking …’

‘Oh, for
fuck’s
sake.’ Dom slammed his hands down on the table and Betty instinctively put an admonishing finger to her lips. Dom raised his eyebrows at her and then folded his arms across his chest. ‘What is this?’ he barked. ‘I’ve got two
effing
wives now. Jesus.’

Betty glanced at the children to make sure they weren’t too perturbed by this exchange and the ripe language but they seemed unfazed, and it occurred to Betty, sadly, that they were probably used to it.

‘It’s not that,’ she said in as mild a voice as she could manage. ‘It’s Amy. I work for Amy. I have to follow her rules.’

‘You do not work for Amy,’ said Dom, darkly, ‘you work for me. Who do you think pays your wages?’

‘Amy…?’

He rolled his eyes. ‘Oh, really, you think so? And tell me, when was the last time Mighty sold a million records, eh? When was the last time Mighty sold out a stadium tour? You think Amy Metz paid for this place?’ He gestured around the room. ‘You think Amy Metz is paying to get her hair dyed, as we speak? You think she pays for anything?’

Betty shrugged and stroked the baby’s hair. ‘I never really thought about it.’

‘Well, there you go.’ He pushed his half-eaten plate of food away childishly. ‘Think about it for just one moment, and you’ll see that I pay your wages and therefore you work for me.’

Betty gulped. She could feel tears rising up through her body and she swallowed them down painfully.

Dom sighed dramatically and put a hand on Donny’s head. ‘But,’ he began, ‘if Mummy says you can’t go out and play football with Daddy then I suppose we’ll just have to do what Mummy says.’

‘No!’ screamed Donovan. ‘No! I want to play football!’

‘Sorry, mate,’ said Dom, casting a meaningful glance in Betty’s direction. ‘The women don’t want us to, and us poor blokes have
to
do what the women say. Otherwise we get our willies chopped off.’

Donovan stopped crying for a minute and stared at Dom, aghast. ‘Really?’

‘No,’ said Betty, ‘of course not. But Mummy wants you in the car when she gets back and so football will have to wait for another day.’

‘No!’ he screamed again. ‘No! Now! Football now!’

Dom kissed Donny on his head and gave Betty another dark look. ‘I think I’d better leave,’ he said.

Betty grimaced at him. ‘Why?’ she said. ‘Couldn’t you just play football in the garden?’ She looked through the sliding glass doors to the sixty-foot lawn with half-size football goal beyond.

‘No!’ shouted Donny. ‘I want to play in the park. With Daddy.’

Dom simply raised an eyebrow at Betty and got to his feet. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he said to Donny. ‘Fun’s over. I’ll see you soon, yeah.’ He kissed him on the mouth. ‘And you, girls, love you all.’ He kissed Acacia and then he leaned in towards Betty to kiss the baby, and she reeled at the smell of his vaporous breath, the stale cigarette smoke clinging to his clothes and a blob of egg yolk in the corner of his mouth drying to a crust.