Something Good (11 page)

N
ancy's right foot was propped on a chair in her kitchen. Beneath a hideous, ribbed knee-high, the big toe was thickly bandaged, the result of being crushed by a shopping bag. “You were trying to carry too much,” Jane scolded her. “Why don't you get a taxi back from the shops, or call me and I'll pick stuff up for you?”

“It was only
tins,
” Nancy retorted. “A few cans of Ambrosia creamed rice. Doctor says it's healing nicely, not that I'll be going back to him—he was barely more than a child, Jane, and I don't need some whippersnapper telling me what I can and can't do.” As if to demonstrate the digit's remarkable healing power, she bumped her foot on to the floor and hobbled toward the nerve center of the clippings library.

Jane followed her in, breathing in the smell of aging newsprint. “There's something I want to show you,” Nancy said, extracting a faded green file from a drawer. She pulled out a rumpled newspaper cutting and offered it to Jane. “I thought of you when I found this,” Nancy added. “Didn't you see his exhibition years ago? I have to say, this really is art—a world away from the kind of work you produce. Thought you might pick up some tips.”

You've never seen anything I've produced,
Jane thought. She examined the cutting: Archie Snail. “Well,” Nancy said, “is that him?”

“Yes. I can't believe you remember.”

“You know me,” she said, cackling. “I forget nothing. Have you read much about him?”

“Not really. He's American, and doesn't seem to have produced much since—”

“He works in Scotland,” Nancy interrupted. “He's just started running courses, workshops, whatever you call them. Something about being ruined financially, having to keep himself afloat. Why not nip up there, sharpen up your skills?”

“I can't just
nip
up to Scotland,” Jane protested. “I've got Hannah and my job….”

“Doesn't that nursery give you holidays? Couldn't Hannah stay with Max, if he's not too tied up with that fancy woman?”

Jane winced. “It's too far, Mum.”

“Glasgow's not that far. It's hardly Madagascar. Get on a train at King's Cross and bingo.”

Jane peered at the cutting. The newspaper had used the same photo as the website; same weaselly eyes and vexed demeanor. She scanned the text, picking out phrases:
outstanding craftsman…most gifted artist in the stained glass medium…financial hardship after a fire that destroyed his studio and virtually all of his work…runs five-day courses on a remote Hebridean island…
“It's nowhere near Glasgow,” Jane murmured. “His studio's on some tiny island off the west coast.”

Nancy lowered herself on to the room's sole chair and hoisted her bad foot on to the opposite thigh. “You've traveled, haven't you? What about that summer you and Max took off, went to India before—”

“Yes, Mum, I got pregnant.”

“Well, I'm sure a reasonably intelligent thirty-eight-year-old woman like you is capable of getting herself from London to some Scottish island. Hannah won't mind. I assume she's still besotted with that ridiculous Zoë girl? Too busy, is she, to come and see me?”

“She's got extra theater rehearsals,” Jane fibbed, feeling a twist in her stomach. Hannah hadn't wanted to come to Granny Nancy's; she and Zoë were going to study together, which could be roughly translated as
We're going shopping, using Zoe's limitless funds, then coming home to beautify ourselves. Pity us our hectic lives.

“On a Saturday?” Nancy huffed. “You don't need to humor me. If Hannah doesn't want to come anymore, that's absolutely fine.”

“Of course she does,” Jane said, knowing that her mother was right; between hanging out with Princess Zoë or being told what to watch on TV in cabbage-smelling living room, there really was no contest.

Jane slipped the Archie cutting into her jeans pocket and kissed her mother's papery cheek. “And Mum,” she added, “I'm only thirty-seven.”

 

“What shall I do about Mum?” came Hannah's voice.

Jane tensed in the water. She'd poured herself a shoulder-deep bath, sloshing in a liberal helping of Hannah's chocolate truffle bath deluxe foam. It looked far too expensive to be poured, least of all into a bath; its golden top and metallic label made it look like some exotic sweet drink, though its label read Do Not Drink. Jane lay as still as possible, but couldn't make out Zoë's reply. It sounded like, “Your mum's all right.”
Well, thank you kindly,
Jane thought angrily.
You're sleeping over yet again; you drift around our house, doing whatever you like, and I'm deemed as “all right.”

“She was going on about those nail varnishes,” Hannah continued, her voice clearly audible from her room. “Said I should politely ask you not to keep giving me stuff.” An outburst of giggles. “Please, Zoë,” Hannah continued, affecting a ridiculous cut-glass accent, “would you be so kind as to not keep showering me with presents, there's a love?”

Zoë was laughing openly now. Both of them were. Hadn't it occurred to them that Jane might hear them? Didn't they care? “God, Han,” Zoë said, “you're so funny, you know that? You're not like anyone I've ever met. The girls at school are all so superficial and up themselves.”

“That's what you get for going to a posh school.”

“Wish I went to
your
school.”

Jane glanced over the side of the bath. One of Zoë's sandals was lying on its side by the loo. Emma Hope Shoes read the oval-shaped label on the sandal's inside. Regalia for Feet. Jane and Hannah's shoes weren't “by” anyone. They were from Dolcis or Shelleys or Roman Road market. They weren't Regalia.

Hannah's beaten-up trainers lay beside Zoë's pink embroidered confection. The ends of the laces were grubby and frayed; they looked like the footwear of a different species. Jane wondered when Hannah would start asking for Emma Hope shoes. She'd already acquired a new habit of applying full makeup before school. It was subtle enough to sidestep the no-makeup rule; what concerned Jane was the time it took. Most mornings Hannah was running late, often with homework not done.

“What d'you think I should do?” Hannah asked.

“About what?”

“Mum getting on at me.”

Christ, Jane thought, is that how she sees me? She glared down at the bubbles. They weren't chocolate-colored—not the luscious molten Aero she'd expected—but disappointingly white. “She's probably going through the menopause,” Zoë ventured.

“You think so? What happens then?”

“You go completely weird. Mum told me all about it.”

“Is your mum having it?” Hannah asked.

“God no. She's
way
younger than your mum. But she told me what happens, about your bones going brittle and—” pause for stifled snort “—how you shrivel up
down there
.”

Jane's heart was thudding urgently. She could see it—the agitated pulsing of her chest. She glared down at her long, slender legs and tried to imagine the noncrumbly, virtually
indestructible
bones inside them. “You start piling on weight around your middle,” Zoë continued, “and your face gets hairy. You know how old women have hairs poking out of their chin? Like, they have to get them electrolocized? And you get sweaty at night and don't want sex anymore but—” she sounded as if she were choking on her own tongue now “—that's okay 'cause no one wants to do it with you anyway!” They erupted in laughter.

Ha-di-bloody-ha,
thought Jane, poking a toe—a rather gnarled toe, she realized now—through the thin layer of foam. Not that she had a sex life to lose. Her last encounter with the male species had been over a year ago. She and Daniel Banks—a thin, shy surveyor who'd commissioned a bathroom window—had spent several nights together when Hannah had been staying with Max. He'd been so well-meaning—so eager to please—that Jane had felt wretched for not fancying him back. Pretty soon, she'd realized that she was hiding him from Hannah as if he were an embarrassing stain. There was nothing wrong with him exactly. Nothing she could put a finger on. Yet if the prospect of introducing him to her daughter was beyond remote, what was the point in continuing?

Jane grabbed the bottle and sloshed in more chocolate foam. She shut her eyes, breathing it in, this evidentally near-menopausal woman who was due to shrivel up into a tight little ball at any moment—or go off, like a malfunctioning burglar alarm. The bath had gone tepid and there was no more hot water in the tank. Jane hauled herself out and wrapped herself tightly in a clammy towel, trying to dampen the pounding in her chest. How dare they discuss her like that? She gave Hannah acres of leeway. What about the puking incident? Jane hadn't made a fuss. She'd even washed the goddam path! And hadn't she been justified in questioning all the makeup Hannah was acquiring? How many nail polishes did a girl need? Max, or maybe Veronica, must be doling out money to the girls. It would have to stop. They wouldn't be beholden to some woman who developed a formula for aphrodisiac cookies. Swathed in her towel Jane stomped to her room, shutting the door firmly behind her.

Even in bed there was no chance of sleeping. Jane's brain whirled, fueled by marauding hormones signalling her impending withering up. She thought about her own mother who, at sixty-seven, paid no heed to her age and, damaged toe aside, could tackle any task you could throw at her. She swiveled out of bed, retrieved her jeans from the floor and pulled out the Archie cutting from the pocket.

She could read it properly now, without Nancy breathing coarsely down her neck:

Jane figured out the dates. Hannah would be on half-term break. She'd give her the option of coming but sensed that she'd prefer to stay with Max, Zoë and Non-Menopausal-In-Her-Sexual-Prime Veronica. Fine: they could do with a break from each other. Jane examined the mischievous curl of Archie's mouth, the challenging spark in those narrowed eyes. She slipped the article into the drawer of her bedside table.

Pulling the towel around her, she crept downstairs and logged on to her PC. She tapped in Archie's Web address. The “accommodation” button threw up an image of a stately home called Hope House. That couldn't be right. It was all turrets and bay windows in formidable gray stone, backed by extravagantly sweeping hills.

She fired off an e-mail:

 

I would like to enquire if places are available on Archie Snail's Advanced Stain Glass Workshop, commencing February 18. Could you also please advise me of availability and cost of accommodation at Hope House for one/possibly two people.

With many thanks, Jane Deakin.

 

On her way back upstairs, Jane heard Hannah's voice. She paused, holding her breath. “Will that happen to us?” Hannah asked.

“What?” Zoë said.

“The fat, hairy-faced thing. The
menopause
thing.”

“Fuck, no,” Zoë exclaimed. “By the time we're that old, there'll be some kind of pill we can take to stop all that happening.”

“Well,” Hannah said, “thank God for that.”

O
llie's house wasn't remotely as Hannah had imagined. There was no garden, no conservatory, no patio heater; in fact it wasn't even a house, but a flat in a stark concrete block with a rusting radiator lying on its side by the front entrance. “Which one's yours?” she asked.

“Top floor,” Ollie said. He smiled at her, and his eyes said:
See? There's stuff you don't know about me.

Hannah felt her preconceptions fall away. Ollie wasn't posh. He might have a posh voice, and be studying at a posh sixth form college—not to mention have the means to drink wine and nibble salad with poached egg draped on top at the Opal—but he didn't live a posh
life
. He flicked his cigarette on to the puddled ground. “Come on,” he said, “I'll show you my palace.”

The stairwell smelled of fierce disinfectant. In an attempt to spruce up the entrance someone had placed a wicker basket filled with grimy plastic tulips on a windowsill. Hannah felt a swill of nerves as they climbed the stairs. Ollie had already said that his mum would be working at the restaurant. Before she'd seen where they lived, Hannah had pictured her gliding around some exclusive place—being the person who showed you to your table, but didn't have to deal with the horrible remains of people's dinners. Now she wondered if Ollie's mum did something more ordinary, like washing up, or peeling potatoes.

They reached Ollie's front door, and he rummaged in jacket pockets for keys. Hannah studied the back of his neck; the way his hair curled, asking to be touched and kissed. His skin was so soft—virtually edible. As he opened the door, she realized she was gnawing noisily on her gum. She swallowed, and the gum skidded down her throat.

“Hey,” Ollie said, “are you okay?”

“Fine,” Hannah said brightly as she followed him in.

A pair of black tights was draped over a radiator. The living room was sparsely furnished, but not in a minimalist way—not like Zoë's room with its golden letters and calico walls—but in a manner that suggested that Ollie and his mum didn't own much stuff. The walls were an unsettling shade of red, as if painted by someone in the throes of emotional trauma. The whole place smelled of damp washing.

It was dark outside. Through a glass door, which led from the living room onto a balcony, Hannah could see blurred headlamps inching along Cambridge Heath Road. “Have a seat,” Ollie said, sounding shyer than usual—almost awkward.

She perched on the sofa's edge, feeling as if they were strangers who'd found themselves in the same room and were obliged to make conversation. Her tongue had shriveled up. She was aware of a vein pulsating on the side of her neck. On the wall above the tiled fireplace were black-and-white photos in clipframes. Each photo was of the same woman. Her enormous eyes were heavily rimmed with black liner, her mouth forming a pensive smile. Although pretty, she looked kind of folorn—almost scared.

Ollie sat beside Hannah. “So,” he said, “you're in the show after all.”

“Yeah, as a plant.”

He laughed and said, “You'll make a lovely Venus flytrap. It's a good idea of Beth's—having a person play Audrey Junior instead of that papier-mâché disaster they were building….”

“I'll be
wearing
the papier-mâché disaster,” she retorted, pulling up her legs and trying to nestle into the unyielding sofa. She glanced at the overdressed Christmas tree in the corner of the room. An ungainly angel, its features crudely drawn in felt tip, was perched on the top.

“That's Mum's contribution,” Ollie explained. “She's like a little girl when it comes to Christmas.” He indicated the clip-framed pictures. “That's Celia, my mum.”

“She looks so young!” Hannah exclaimed.

Ollie smiled. “She doesn't look like that now. They were taken years ago, when I was a baby.”

“Why are there so many pictures of her?”

“She was a model until—well, she couldn't work anymore. Stuff happened to Mum. She hasn't modeled since I was a kid.”

Hannah frowned, wanting to know more. “Was she famous?”

“No, she didn't do designer shows or any of that. She was more your thermal underwear catalogue kind of girl. You want something to drink?”

“Just tea please,” she said, hoping that didn't sound feeble. She'd told her mother that she'd be home after costume fittings. She had no intention of overstepping the mark by going home with boozy breath.

Ollie ambled through to the kitchen. Alone in the red room, Hannah got up to examine the photos. Celia. The name was familiar. Unusual, old-fashioned, matching her makeup and hair. There'd been some Celia mentioned at home: maybe a day care worker at Nippers, or a friend of her mum's who'd drifted away. “Celia Tibbs,” she murmured.

Hannah glimpsed her reflection in the mirror above the fireplace. She was wearing her own jeans, Zoë's floaty top and a beaded bracelet that she'd nicked from a hippy shop on Bethnal Green Road. Her face was made up with stolen eye shadow (in “Pewter”), lipstick (“Candy Girl”) and mascara (“Cocoa”). She'd painted her nails Very Cherry but had decided it looked too goth and quickly covered it with Mauve Kiss. No wonder she'd been late for theater workshop. Getting changed after school used to take her five minutes max.

The phone rang, and Hannah heard Ollie taking the call in the kitchen. “Hey,” he said gently, “it's okay. Yeah, just got a friend here. Of course I will.”

Hannah examined her nails. Zoë had been right: nicking stuff wasn't that difficult. Plenty of shops didn't put security stickers on their goods, and Zoë knew which ones were “safe,” as she put it. You could use one hand to pick up something and examine it, while your other hand closed around a small item and casually slipped it into your pocket. Or you could pick up two of the same thing, put one back and leave the other concealed in your loosely clenched fist; a white-knuckle grip was a giveaway. Bigger items were trickier, but not beyond the well-practised lifter. Last week Zoë had gleefully showed her the chocolate leather jewelry box she'd pinched for Veronica's Christmas present. You just had to be calm, brave and know exactly what you wanted, and, Hannah surmised, those were pretty smart rules for life.

Ollie said, “Love you, too.” Hannah frowned. It was a
girl
he was talking to. Did Ollie have some girlfriend on the go? Surely he wouldn't speak to her with Hannah sitting a few feet away. “We'll talk later,” he added, then emerged from the kitchen with two mugs of tea.

As he set them on the floor, Hannah tried to bring up the issue of him crooning, “I love you” without sounding weird or possessive. Where was Zoë's
Cosmo
when she needed it? “Ollie,” she started, “I just wondered…”

He looked at her, then his lips were on hers, and he was kissing her more forcefully than on the towpath; it was dizzying. Hannah's foot collided with her mug, but she didn't stop to worry about the spillage and mess because her head was full of kissing and wanting him. “Let's go to my room,” Ollie murmured.

Hannah's heart lurched. “Can't we stay here?” she managed to say. Her mother would know if she went to bed with him, even if they did nothing more than lie there kissing. She'd come home supposedly from an extremely innocent theater workshop costume fitting with
I've been to bed with Ollie Tibbs
scrawled all over her face. Anyway, he didn't just want to kiss in his bedroom; he was seventeen and a boy and he wanted to do it. “Hey,” he said, taking her hand, “it's okay. Hang on a minute….”

Stepping over the puddle of tea, he sauntered across the living room, straightening his T-shirt and jeans, and started rummaging through the drawer of a pine unit. What was he looking for? God, thought Hannah: he's getting a condom. Is that where he kept them, in a drawer in the living room for his mum to find? He was going to get his thing out and expect her to put the condom on for him. They'd had a go at rolling them on to bananas in sex ed at school. Mrs. Finch had rolled on her own rather enthusiastically, then whipped it off with a flick of her wrist and pinged it across the room into the bin. It had been screamingly embarrassing.

Hannah's heart was walloping in her chest. She wanted to be at home, lying in a chocolatey bath, merely
thinking
about doing all kinds of delicious things with Ollie. “Here it is,” he announced, pulling something from the drawer and stuffing it into his pocket.

“What is it?” Her voice sounded strangled.

“Come out to the balcony and I'll show you. I'm desperate for a cig. Mum goes mad if I smoke in here.”

He took a key from its hook, unlocked the door and they stepped outside. The balcony was dominated by a collapsible plastic washstand, which was heavily laden with underwear. Bras and knickers glittered with a fine covering of frost. Ollie didn't seem to notice, or at least didn't comment. Maybe, thought Hannah, his mum left her underwear out here all the time. She felt safer here. Nothing scary or dramatic was going to happen on a balcony with traffic crawling about all around them.

Ollie fished out a battered packet of cigarettes and a box of matches from his jeans pocket. He lit a cigarette and pulled out the other, slightly larger box. Hannah's lips still tingled from the kiss. “Here,” Ollie said, handing her the box. “Sorry I didn't have time to wrap it.”

“What is it?”

“Early Christmas present, nothing much.”

She opened the box and lifted the silver chain from its velvet nest. It was so delicate, with tiny pink crystals spaced along the chain, that she feared she might snap it by breathing on it. “I had no idea…you didn't need—”

“I wanted to buy you something.” Ollie stared at his feet.

She looked at him. The gaudy colors of Christmas lights flitted across his lovely face. He'd chosen and bought this for her; this pool of silver in her palm. “Ollie,” she said, “who were you talking to on the phone?”

“My mum, why?”

“I just wondered.” She stared at the necklace, then placed it carefully back in its box. “It's gorgeous,” she said.

Ollie kissed her again, in full view of his mother's red lacy knickers and said, “So are you.”