A Minor Indiscretion (5 page)

“O
h, Daddy! How could you!” Tanya is tearful and possibly premenstrual, which at this age is a frightening condition that turns her into a hormonal psychopath. I'm sure I was never like this at fifteen. I was always so good.

Ed has just walked through the door. He is desperately late and is looking extremely bemused. “What?”

He looks to me for support, but I have my hands on my hips and am in no mood to placate anyone, as I've had to listen to three hours of how Tanya doesn't concentrate in lessons (any of them, apparently) and how, if she doesn't stop yapping to her friends and eyeing up the boys and start doing some serious work pretty damn soon, then she's going to end up working on a checkout in some shabby supermarket. Not exactly the teacher's words, but I'm paraphrasing and it amounted to the same thing anyway.

Ed looks at Tanya. “Well—what?”

“You have missed my parents' evening,” she wails, and crashes upstairs, managing to knock all the Gustav Klimt prints askew for maximum effect. “You don't care about me at all,” she shouts down over the banister rail. What she really means is that she's had to listen to me moaning at her for the last hour, telling her how she is going to be grounded for three whole weeks while she catches up with her homework, and how she probably won't get
any pocket money until the same year she starts drawing her pension and that “Daddy, how could you!” would probably have smoothed it all over for her.

Ed turns to me, looking vaguely mortified. “I completely and utterly forgot,” he says.

“Oh, Ed! How could you!” I say, taking up my daughter's refrain.

“I got caught in a meeting.”

“Yes. I can smell it on your breath.”

“I had
one,
” he insists. “At the Groucho. A quick one.”

I glance at the clock to make a point.

“Oh, Daddy! How could you!” Elliott is in his best striped pajamas and is holding Barney, the chipper purple dinosaur, by his one remaining ear. His eyes roll round his sockets and he pouts petulantly. Clearly, my youngest child, when he has finished his extortionately priced schooling, is heading straight for a career on the stage. We both try not to smile at him. “You've missed Tanya's parents' evening. And all her schoolwork is really, really bad,” he says triumphantly.

“I hate you too, Elliott, you little snitch,” Tanya shouts over the banister.

“Tanya!”
I'm the one who shouts in this house.

Elliott rolls his eyes some more. “Women,” he says with a campy flick of the wrist and flounces upstairs to bed.

“Elliott. Wee and clean your teeth. I'll be up in a minute.”

I march through to the kitchen because I want to shout at Ed too and I don't think you should ever row in front of your children. He puts his briefcase down and shrugs out of his coat in a weary way, and somehow, instead of making me feel soft toward him, it incenses me even more. With drooping shoulders, he follows me through to the kitchen.

“I forgot,” he repeats before I can launch into him.

“It was the last thing I said to you when you left the house this morning.”

“I have dealt with a million things since then, Ali. It slipped clean away. I didn't do this on purpose.”

“Sometimes I wonder whether you care at all. They are your children too. Next year is Tanya's exam year. This is important to her.”

“It's important to me too….”

“Is it?”

“You know it is.”

“I have been trying to ring you for hours, and your phone is switched off.”

“The battery was low. I was trying to save it.”

“A fat lot of good that is to me.”

“I'm sorry.”

I know that you can't use mobile phones in the Groucho without threat of expulsion for such a hideous flaunting of the rules, and this makes me cross because it bothers Ed more than his daughter's entire future. But I can't stay angry, I'm too exhausted. What I really want is a big cuddle and for Ed to tell me that my daughter isn't going to end up as a juvenile delinquent and a single-parent family. I'm so upset that she can't see the opportunities she has to make a great life for herself and is, instead, content to watch
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
and spend her days at school goofing off. Am I such an awful role model for her? Where have I gone wrong that she doesn't want to be a geneticist or a corporate lawyer or a Shakespearean actress? Why does she have no ambition beyond how many times she can get one ear pierced?

I pretend that all I want in life is her happiness. But it is lip service. I don't. I want her to work hard and earn lots of money and be able to make informed choices about her future and have a great job that I can boast about to other mothers with less successful daughters. I don't want her to be pregnant at sixteen and be saddled with looking after her baby while she tries to claw back some of her childhood. I want her to travel the world and break some hearts while not having hers broken in return, then I want her to meet a wonderful, financially secure, emotionally stable Ben Affleck look-alike when she's twenty-nine and then think about having babies. Am I being unreasonable? I don't think so. And I wish I could share this—with Tanya, with Ed, with anyone. But I can't. No one understands me. Ed would laugh and say that I'm getting it all out of proportion just because some tight-arsed lesbian teacher who's never had a proper job thinks it's unusual for a fifteen-year-old to have the attention span of a flea. It's all right for him. He was hopeless at school, did badly in all of his exams and has carved out a great career for himself in a job which he loves, through sheer determination. I worked really hard and achieved zip—unless you count a relief map of the Andes in stretch marks on my stomach.

I crash about and put the kettle on. “Your dinner is all dried up.” I sniff. “It looks disgusting.” It looked disgusting before it dried up and it tasted fairly awful too, but I won't tell Ed that. I'll let him discover it for himself. He'll eat it without complaint, because despite the fact that he has a memory like a particularly leaky sieve, he's not a bad man.

I watch him lift his dinner from the depths of the oven with something approaching horror. He lays it gingerly on the table. “What is it?” he says.

“I can't remember.” I put a cup of tea down next to him. “Something from Marks & Spencer. Mexican, I think. It looked okay three hours ago.”

“It looks very nice now,” he says, and my cruel, upset heart melts. “Thanks.”

I sit down at the table opposite him. “You need to go and talk to Tanya. She's doing really badly at school. I don't know what's wrong with her.”

“Can't you do it?”

“No, I can't.”

“You're so much better at it than me.” Ed is whining and I dig my heels into the kitchen floor.

“You're the one that's upset her.”

“I'll go up in a minute,” he promises. I hear the sigh hidden in his voice. “I'll see to Elliott too. Where's Thomas?”

“In bed with Harry Potter, where else?”

Ed smiles tiredly. “Two drama queens and a pervert. We're doing a great job.”

“No one said it would be easy.”

He puts his fork down for a moment, and I fear he is about to abandon whatever it is I cooked for him. “No one said it would be this hard either, did they?”

“No. I guess not.”

Sometimes I would like to stop being a parent and just walk out of the front door without thinking about anyone else. The last time I did that I was about twenty. I wonder if Ed ever feels the same? He picks up his fork again and stabs it into his food determinedly.

“What was your meeting about?”

Ed keeps his head over his food and takes a long time before he answers.

“It was with Orla. She's setting up a new company.”

I vaguely remember who Orla is and “Mmm” my interest.

“Ali.” Ed looks up, and his eyes are deep and distant and I can't see what's behind them at all. “Would you ever consider moving to the States?”

I'm taken aback. “America?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Ed puts down his fork and pushes his plate away. “I thought not.” He gets up from the table. “I'll speak to Tanya.”

K
ath Brown comes into the office. When I say office, it's really a glorified cupboard filled with bulging files and bits of fabric and colorful storyboards to give people a sneak preview of how their house will look when they recklessly abandon their magnolia walls to Kath's flowery clutches. It's always the same. Whoever the client. They start off tentatively with the first room—a little change here and a swag or a tail or two there—and then they get bolder with each room. Their confidence grows as they progress through the house—a touch of gilt here, a bit of glitz there, more plasterwork, perhaps a bit of handcrafted something—and the suppliers become steadily more exclusive. Perhaps that's why having a name like Kath Brown works. It's a name you can depend on. You're never going to get ripped off by a Kath Brown, are you?

I am typing invoices. Like the choice of fabrics, they also grow a little bolder with each room. I am in ultra-efficient mode and my fingers are positively smoking over the keyboard. This cupboard-cum-office may look like utter chaos to the untrained eye, but I can lay my fingers on anything I need within a millisecond. Kath, on the other hand, cannot. I look up at her and smile benevolently. She needs me more than I need her.

Looking very worried, she slides her glasses down to the end of her nose and peers over them at me. “There's a boy in the shop,”
she says hesitantly. I stop the flurry with my fingers. “A young boy. He says he knows you. He's asked to see you.”

I can't even kid myself. I know exactly who it is. And so do you. Only Kath Brown is in the dark. I frown as if to say, “How intriguing!” while I try and think of something to say to her. I stand up and my knees are shaky and I wonder if I've gone as white as I feel.

“You'd better go through,” Kath says when it's clear I'm not about to offer an explanation. And what could I tell her? “He's waiting.”

“I won't be a minute,” I promise her, and in the three steps it takes me to cross the office, I mentally check out how I must look. I'm wearing a black trouser suit, which is great because it's quite trendy and makes me feel younger and everyone was very civilized at breakfast this morning so it hasn't got any puke or jam or tea stains on it. A major plus when you want to look good, I think you'll agree. And, I know it's stupid, but I do want to look good. I don't possess a pair of Jimmy Choo kitten heels in which to skip lightly across the floor, but these ones are from Marks & Spencer's Particularly Expensive Range, or something, and do the job just fine.

In the shop, Christian looks vaguely uncomfortable. It must have been quite an effort for him to come here. I pause at the doorway to watch him. He is fingering some of the fabrics—the ones that are £180 per meter—and if he were Elliott, I'd tell him off. I hope he hasn't got charcoaly hands.

“Hi,” I say, and Christian spins round. Just his smile is enough to do very weird things to me. This is ridiculous! I am old. I am a mother. I am a wife. I am a sensible suburban woman. How can he do this to me?

“Sorry,” he whispers. “I didn't know what else to do.”

“You shouldn't be here,” I whisper back, even though he's as much as told me he knows that. I wonder if Kath Brown has a glass pressed to the wall. I would, in her situation.

“I was missing you,” he says, as if that's explanation enough.

“Christian!”

“What?”

“How did you know where to find me?”

“I went in all the designer shops until I found someone who didn't look at me as if I was mad.”

“I should be cross with you.”

“But you're not.” His mouth curls in a smile. Such is the naiveté and the confidence of youth.

“I am.”

“I wanted to see you. You haven't been in the piazza at all.”

“I've been trying to avoid you.”

“Why?” I can't believe how hurt he looks. “Don't you like me?”

I check that Kath Brown isn't right behind me, eyes popping with apoplexy. “It isn't that simple.”

“So you do like me?”

“Of course I like you.”

“Then why are you avoiding me?”

“I think it's for the best.”

“For whom?”

We are still speaking in stage whispers, and I'm looking round me, checking over my shoulders, like some sort of third-rate spy. “For both of us. I have commitments, Christian.”

He looks affronted. “So do I.”

“You don't.”

Christian does that charming smile that makes my insides go watery. “I don't, do I?”

“You don't even know the meaning of the word.” I am teasing and we both laugh. Quietly.

“I miss you,” he says candidly. “I haven't seen you for days. I just want to talk to you.”

“We can't talk here,” I warn him. “This puts me in a difficult position.”

“I didn't mean to.”

“Christian…” I try to sound rational and stern and instead sound faintly desperate. “I have to think of my family.”

“Don't they let you have friends?”

“Yes, but…”

“Then say you'll see me.” He grins because he thinks he's winning.

“No. I can't.”

“You can,” he insists. “Just once.”

“Christian. No.”

“Spend the day with me.”

“How can I?”

“Just one day. Not even the whole day. Just a bit of the day. Say you will.”

“No. No. Definitely no.”

The doorbell chimes and two customers saunter in. They look very well-heeled, dripping with designer labels, and probably want some understated brocade fabrics for a little pied-à-terre in town. They definitely look like a £180 per meter pair. He is much older than her. I notice these things now. Christian starts to back away toward the door, incongruous in his black jeans and trainers, clutching his sketchpad. Any minute now Kath will breeze out to greet her clients. Christian lowers his voice, so I have to lean closer to him. “Say you'll meet me or I'll embarrass you.”

“Don't you dare!”

“Say you'll meet me.”

“Christian!” I hiss in the most threatening tone I can manage without anyone else hearing.

He grins. “Friday. Meet me on Friday.”

“I'm working.”

“Be reckless, take a day off.”

Doesn't he know that all my days off are accounted for during school holidays? If you don't book up from one year to the next, you haven't a hope in hell of going anywhere decent. I have to grovel for weeks if I want to attend Thomas's sports day. Thankfully, Tanya's school sold off the playing fields for a housing estate during the Tories' reign and are content to let their charges become couch potatoes.

“I'll be waiting outside Kew Gardens. The main entrance at ten o'clock.”

I haven't been to Kew in years, even though we live just down the road. It's so beautiful there. You'd think you were a million miles from London. We took Tanya when she was much younger, but now she'd die of boredom, it would be so uncool. Although the fresh air might kill her first though. “No.”

“Don't be late,” he warns. He checks that the well-heeled couple are turned away and blows me a kiss. Before I can hiss anything else, Christian backs out of the shop looking triumphant.

I smile cheesily at the couple just as Kath Brown appears. She gives me a suspicious look and then turns her attention to her paying customers, holding out her hand to greet them effusively. I slope off into the office, grateful for the chance to get back behind my desk, and I wonder what I'm going to tell Kath Brown when she asks who my visitor was. And to think, two weeks ago
my major problem was coming up with a nutritious alternative to chicken nuggets. I breathe the gusty sigh of the terminally confused and open a file of invoices on my desk despite the fact I have one open already.

The afternoon is a complete waste of time. My smoking fingers are extinguished beyond re-ignition, and I shuffle paper about aimlessly until Kath Brown finally cracks under the strain.

“Is everything all right?” she asks in a way that tells me she wants to know but only if it's not too mucky.

“I think so.”

“Tanya's not in trouble, is she?” My God, she thinks Christian has got my daughter pregnant! If only she knew it's me who's in trouble.

“If you need time off for anything, anything at all, you only have to say.”

“Thanks.” This is possibly the last thing I need to hear. I want her to tell me that we are about to be inundated by an avalanche of work as the well-heeled couple have seventeen houses that want tarting up and that she can't spare me for a minute and, in fact, would I like to work some overtime? Something that hasn't happened since I've been here. But I can live in hope.

“You can go home early, if it will help,” she says kindly, and then I realize she's probably noticed that I've been staring at the same invoice for the past two hours.

“I think I will, if that's okay.” I try to look pathetic and worried, which isn't all that difficult.

“Sure.” Kath Brown can be very sweet. “Take it easy. I'll see you tomorrow, Ali.”

“Yes.” I really am beginning to feel awful now.

I fuss my papers away hurriedly to escape from her unbearably sympathetic gaze and rush out.

Standing outside the shop, I linger in the doorway. The air is heavy, close, carrying the scent of rain. I breathe deeply, glad to be out of my cupboard. I step out onto the pavement and stop in my tracks. Heedless of the taxis whizzing by, I stand back in the gutter and stare speechlessly. In bright red chalk, there is a message for me scrawled on the concrete.

DON'T BE LATE, ALI KINGSTON!!

Christian has drawn a smiley face underneath it. And two kisses. I check to see that Kath Brown is safely ensconced in her
shop and try to rub it away with my shoe, starting with the kisses. Red chalk is impossible to get off pavement. Did you know that? I do. I look at the sky, and the black clouds have drifted away harmlessly. I check the pavement, and the message is still there. I hope the clouds come back and it will rain soon and wash away my embarrassment. And certainly before Kath Brown comes out. I don't know quite what she'd make of this.

I walk down the street, lighthearted in my non-Jimmy Choo's and smile to myself with exasperation when I think of Christian and his bare-faced cheek. Don't be late! No, I won't be late, Christian Winter, because I won't be there!