A Friend of the Family (12 page)

‘Oh yes,’ Bernie sat bolt upright and gave them her undivided attention.

‘Well,’ said Sean, exchanging a nauseatingly complicitous look with Millie, ‘on Wednesday night, I asked Millie if she’d marry me…’

Mum screamed and went rigid, her hands flying to her face to cover her mouth.

‘… and she said yes. We’re getting married!’

For a second the whole room fell into a suspended silence. Tony looked around nervously. It looked like a game of musical statues.

‘See!’ said Ned triumphantly, pointing a finger at Tony. ‘Didn’t I tell you – didn’t I say?’

And then the room erupted. Everyone leapt to their feet to congratulate them and kiss them. Mum sent Gerry to the off-licence to get a bottle of champagne. Ness started crying. Ned went upstairs to get his camera. But not one person said, ‘Hold on a second, you two hardly know each other – don’t you think you’re rushing into this a bit?’Not one person did the responsible thing. It was pathetic, this desperate thrill-seeking Ooh, wonderful, someone’s getting married, that lifts
my
dull little life out of the doldrums for a minute or two, who cares if they’re making the greatest mistake of their life or not. Jesus.

Someone passed him a glass of champagne and he knocked back half of it, unthinkingly. ‘Tony,’ his mum chastised, ‘wait for the toast! Honestly…’

Everyone was talking dates and proposals and rings and dresses, Ness was running her hand up and down his thigh, and Tony was left to stare at his reflection in the cabinet doors and wonder when exactly his life had turned out like this.

He’
d been the catch. Him. Tony.
He’
d been the big brother, the good-looking one, the successful businessman. He’d been the one with the beautiful wife and the big house, the jeep and the bank account that never went into the red. Sean had just been his little brother, the scamp, the worry to his mother, the one who couldn’t stick at anything.

But now Sean was ‘the author’ and being ‘the author’ meant that everything previously seen as negative about him had sort of fallen into place. Being ‘the author’ meant that a scruffy, lazy guy with smelly trainers who lived on a Catford council estate could persuade a woman like Millie to marry him. And being ‘the author’ meant that
he
was the catch of the family now, not Tony. Not any more. Jesus.

Tony waited glumly for the toast, raised his glass half-heartedly and knocked back some more champagne. This wasn’t right. There were constants in life, important constants, things to anchor you to the world – things like the fact that your mother would always love you, no matter what, and that one day you were going to die. And that you would always, whatever happened in life, be the big brother. But Tony didn’t feel like the big brother any more. He felt like the slightly overweight, dull-witted younger brother who was never
going to leave home and get married. He looked at Sean, glowing and triumphant, and at Ned, the beloved prodigal baby of the family. He looked at Ness again, his ‘saviour’, as she bonded with his mother and it occurred to him that his mother would probably choose Ness over him if she was ever called upon to do so. And then, as if to compound these pathetic feelings of insecurity about his previously unquestioned positioning within the family, a skeletal figure suddenly appeared in the doorway.

‘Gervase! Come in love, come in. You’re just in time. We’ve just had some wonderful news. Gerry, get Gervase a glass for his champagne. Tony, love, shift over a bit, let Gervase sit down.’

Tony shifted over and found himself clinging to the very edges of the gathering. He downed another mouthful of champagne and felt almost swamped by resentment.

He felt insignificant. He felt awkward. He felt as lonesome, dejected and detached from everyone as that little penguin on the front of Millie’s card.

He didn’t fit in any more. He wanted to start again.

He wanted another chance.

Ness didn’t stay over that night. Tony really couldn’t stomach the prospect. He just wanted to get into his own bed, on his own, think about Millie and feel sorry for himself. He didn’t want Ness there, wrapping her never-ending legs around him, trying to cheer him up, being infernally upbeat – being his so-called fucking
saviour.
She whinged a bit but he feigned a splitting headache and an early start and ordered her a minicab and felt himself crumple with relief as he closed the door behind her. And, as he watched her from his living-room window, folding her long legs into the minicab, flirting with the driver, as he listened to her raucous laughter ringing around the mews even with the doors of the car closed, he felt suddenly angry with her. More than angry – completely, lividly furious. Ness, he suddenly felt, was the problem with everything. She was the symbol of the disintegration of his life and the abrupt end of his youth. If you were to draw a line through the middle of Tony’s life to divide it into ‘good times’ and ‘bad times’it would fall directly at the very point where Ness had come into it.

He was still thin when he and Jo split up, still up for it and positive about the future. And then Ness had come into his life and made him laugh. She’d been up for it, too – the two of them had gone out every night, drinking themselves into oblivion, laughing, eating, spending money. She’d taken his mind off any latent fears he might have had about his future as a single man and made him feel good about himself. And the sex had been a revelation after so long with the same woman. Ness’s appetite for sex more than equalled her appetite for food and drink and she was up for everything. Tony had grown quite fond of her over the months, looked forward to seeing her more and more. And then, even though it wasn’t supposed to have been anything serious, somehow, because all his friends were pairing off, they’d
ended up as an item. Friends felt more comfortable spending time with Tony when he was part of a couple and they all loved Ness, thought she was
so
good for Tony. So she became part of the gang and part of his life. And no one had ever really asked him if he minded. They were so keen for the two of them to be together, for TonyAndNess to be a couple, that it just sort of happened. And he shouldn’t have let it, he thought now, he shouldn’t have let Ness knit herself so tightly into his life, because she’d blinded him to possibilities. The possibility of true love and a real future. He’d been living a compromise for ten years, thinking that that was all life could offer. He should have taken his chance when Jo had left, just like she did, taken the opportunity to find true love, to find what Sean had found, to find Millie, to love Millie, to marry Millie. Instead of just dreaming about her.

Marrying Jo hadn’t been a mistake, Tony realized, and getting divorced hadn’t been a mistake, but letting Ness love him had been one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

Millie’s Curveball

‘Thank God that’s over,’ said Sean in the cab on the way home from Mickey’s, more to allow Millie the opportunity to tell him it had been a nightmare than because he was glad it was over. He’d had an excellent night. He always loved family nights out, especially now Ned was back. ‘Thank you for going through that for me.’

‘God, Sean,’ Millie looked at him incredulously, ‘don’t be silly. It was a true pleasure. Your family are fantastic’

He turned to look at her. ‘Really?’

‘Really. I’ve had a brilliant night. Your mum is amazing. And so beautiful. And your father’s adorable.’ Millie smiled and rolled into Sean’s shoulders, nestling into his armpit. ‘I’d like to get to know them. Your family. Get to know them properly. You know?’

Sean looked at her then and kissed the top of her head and loved her even more than he’d loved her that morning, more than he’d ever loved anyone in all of his life, and it was all he could do to stop himself from proposing to her all over again.

‘I can’t get over how different you three brothers all are, though.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you’re all really similar in some ways; you’ve all got the same chins and ears and face shape. But Ned’s all sort of hippiefied and sweet-natured and seems a lot younger than his age. And Tony’s all strait-laced and grown-up and seems older than his age. I can’t believe he’s about the same age as me.’

‘Yup. That’s our Tone. Old before his time.’

‘I think he’s really sweet, though. Like a big teddy bear.’

‘God, he’d slit his wrists if he heard you saying that. He’s really self-conscious about his weight.’

‘Why? He’s not fat.’

‘Yes he is. He’s a complete bloater.’

‘God – men are so
rude
about each other! He’s not fat. He’s just
cuddly.
All pink and fluffy in his fleece. I think he’s quite good-looking, actually.’

Sean threw her a mock-horrified expression. ‘D’you fancy him or something?’

‘No, of course not! I don’t fancy anyone in the whole galaxy except you, my love, as you well know. No – he’s good-looking in that teddy-bear kind of a way. You know. I really like him. And I really like Ness, too.’

‘Yeah, Ness is cool, isn’t she?’

‘Tony doesn’t appreciate her, though, does he?’

Sean shrugged. ‘No,’ he said, ‘probably not – not like I appreciate you, eh?’

Millie smiled at him and nuzzled closer into his shoulder. ‘No one’s ever appreciated me like you do.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’ Sean squeezed her tight
and breathed in deeply, savouring the taste of the moment and trying to halt time, because right then, sitting in the back seat of a Peugeot 406 with Millie on a Saturday night in April, Sean knew he was experiencing perfect and complete happiness.

There was a soft knocking at the bathroom door. ‘Sean? Can I come in?’

‘Just having a pee, Millie, I’ll be out in a second.’

Sean jumped slightly when he heard the door opening behind him and felt Millie’s hand brushing against his jumper.

‘Millie!’

‘Oh, don’t be so silly,’ she scoffed, ‘we’re bloody engaged. It’s about time we admitted to the awful fact that we go to the loo, don’t you think? Anyway, there’s something I want to say and if I don’t say it now…’ She took a huge and audible deep breath. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Sorry? What on earth for?’ Sean’s pee suddenly sounded extraordinarily loud so he tried to angle it down the side of the bowl.

‘I think I’m about to throw you a curveball.’

Sean desperately wanted to turn round and look at her, but he was still, inexplicably, peeing.

‘OK – hit me with it.’ Sean was now also quite convinced that not only was this the longest pee he’d ever done, it was also quite possibly the smelliest.

‘There’s something I have to tell you. Something important. Something you’re probably not expecting and something that’s going to change everything. Big time.’

‘Right.’ Here it comes, he thought, she’s going to dump me. While I’m pissing.
Actually
in the process of pissing.

‘The thing is – and I still haven’t decided whether this is a good thing or a bad thing, but I’m really hoping you’ll think it’s a good thing…’

A good thing,
thought Sean, how could you possibly imagine that I might think that you dumping me while I’m pissing is a good thing?

‘Sean – I’m pregnant.’

The last droplet of pee finally hit the bowl and sounded like a cluster bomb being dropped in the Atlantic.

Then the bathroom was silent.

Charming Sentiments from Overseas

‘I am
stuffed
,’ said Ned, flopping on to the sofa and switching on the TV, ‘absolutely fucking stuffed.’It was the first time since he got home that he’d had any kind of appetite and he’d really gone for it at Mickey’s that night. Houmous and tara with about four whole pitta breads, some deep-fried crispy things stuffed with minced lamb, one of Mum’s stuffed vine leaves, the mixed grill, which was completely
massive,
ice-cream and liqueurs. Not to mention six bottles of Cypriot lager and all the champagne they’d had before they left the house. He pulled up his T-shirt and caressed his swollen belly tenderly.

Gerry came in carrying a large cardboard box full of green-tinged silver candlesticks and his cleaning kit. He laid out some newspaper, made himself a cigarette, put on his brushed-cotton gloves and started polishing, picking up his roll-up every now and then between cotton-covered fingertips and sucking on it contemplatively.

‘Fancy giving me a hand?’ he said to Ned after a few moments.

Ned glanced at him in a manner that suggested he was clearly insane.

‘I’ll give you a fiver.’

Ned thought about his rapidly diminishing bank account. ‘Per thing?’

‘You mad?’ said Gerry. ‘No – for doing half of it.’

‘Half of it? You’ve got to be kidding. There’s about twenty sticks in there.’

‘OK, a tenner.’

‘No way – three quid a stick. That’s my final offer.’

‘One.’

‘Two-fifty.’

‘One-fifty.’

‘Two.’

‘Done.’

‘Cool.’

Ned wrenched himself from his seat and sauntered over to his father. He rifled through the candlesticks for a while, looking for ones without too much ornamentation and fuss, and then took them over to his position in front of the TV.

‘So, tell me more about this big surprise for Mum,’ said Ned.

‘Shhh!’ Gerry put his finger to his lips and looked at Ned sternly.

‘It’s all right – she’s in the kitchen.’

‘Well,’ said Gerry, leaning towards Ned and whispering, ‘I’m going to tell her I’m taking her out for a flash dinner, tell her to get all dolled up, drive past the Ritz,
go all dewy-eyed, you know, remember our first date, that kind of thing. Tempt her in for a quick cocktail, and then – surprise, surprise – da-da!’ He rubbed his hands together and winked at Ned.

‘Who’s going to be there?’

‘You lot, obviously. The rest of the family. Family friends. About fifty of us. Champagne reception. Canapés. Things with caviar and quail’s eggs. No expense spared.’

‘Cool,’ said Ned, ‘and who’s going to be staying the night?’

‘Just us lot. Not forking out for the rest of them – you’ve got to be kidding. I’ve booked four rooms. And yours is a double, so you’d better hurry up and find yourself another girlfriend.’ Gerry laughed at Ned and then pulled himself together as he heard Mum’s footsteps coming up the hallway. ‘Shhh,’ he said again, ‘she’s coming.’