Are You My Mother? (35 page)

Her freckles drooped. ‘Great. Even Mack doesn’t fancy me anymore. God, I’m 19, I’m over the hill, and I’m getting fat. ’ She pinched a non-existent love handle above where the waistband of her jeans should have been, had she not removed it to make a pair of DIY hipsters.

‘
Fat? You must be joking. You’re practically anorexic. And since you didn’t even remotely fancy Mack, you should be happy that he’s met someone he really likes.’

Stella still had a face like a wet dishrag, so I tried again.

‘
Look at it in a positive way, if Mack didn’t send you that teddy bear card, then it means you’ve got at least one secret admirer.’

Still nothing. I made one last attempt.

‘
Why don’t you come to Nottingham with me? I could do with the company.’

She looked up vacantly, her skin as dull as the unpolished chrome inside the dishwasher. I wanted to stuff her so full of echinacea and vitamin C tablets that she rattled.

‘
Oh, um, no, sorry, I’d love to, but I’ve got to finish my project on Decorative Techniques, otherwise I’m in deep shit. Suzanne finished hers ages ago. Besides, we’re going to the pictures tonight and then to The Cross tomorrow night – I was going to stay at her place all weekend.’

‘
Oh. OK, then. Although I don’t see how much work you’ll get done at the cinema or clubbing with Suzanne.’

‘
Don’t nag me, Em, I’m not in the mood.’

I took the bull by the horns. ‘I’m just worried about you, that’s all. You seem run down, and you haven’t been on good form for ages, not since – ‘

We stared wordlessly at the two Valentine’s cards.

‘
Apparently Charlie’s still really mad.’ Stella started to rearrange the dirty cutlery in the basket of the dishwasher, turning her back on me again. ‘Suzanne saw his sister and she was really nasty to her about me, saying that I was a lying slag, and I’d ruined his life. Now his parents have kicked him out of the house. His sister doesn’t even know where he’s living.’

I wasn’t sure what to say. I went over and touched her back, but she shrugged me away.

‘
Please try to take no notice, Stell. His sister was nearly as weird as he was. You did the right thing. He’d attacked someone before, and if you hadn’t have told the police, he might have done it again.’

‘
He still might,’ said Stella, trying to force one cereal bowl too many into the already full dishwasher rack. ‘Oh,
get in,
you BASTARD bowl!’

‘
What do you mean? Of course he won’t – he wouldn’t dare; not with the court case and all. They’d throw the book at him if he tried anything else.’

She straightened up abruptly and stared out of the kitchen window at a magpie, pounding flat-footed and grumpily along a tree branch. Her voice was strained and miserable.

’
Then how come I thought I saw him the other day, in the street? Coming out of the Blind shop. It might not have been, but it really looked like him. And twice when I’ve been here on my own, the phone’s rung but no-one’s been there, and 1471 hasn’t worked.’

I shut my eyes in horror, seeing Stella’s body once more slumped by the wheel of my car. Fury and protectiveness swelled up in a spiral inside me, squeezing the air from my lungs until I could barely breathe. She seemed so vulnerable, standing there by the window, her back to me. I rushed over and hugged her tightly, feeling her bony ribcage frail against my chest. She had yet to sculpt her hair into their harsh snaky waves that morning, and it was soft and scented with my Aveda shampoo, resting fluffily on her shoulders in a way she detested, but which I preferred. She thought it was boring, unwaxed and moulded. I thought it was safer, less…. available. I hated myself for thinking it.

‘
Oh
Stell
. I can’t bear it. Why didn’t you tell me? We’ll ring the police. He’d be mad to come near you.’

She shrugged and looked away, a childish, wordless gesture. ‘They won’t do anything. Not unless I could prove it was him, or if he did…. try anything.’

I realised that she was right. ‘That’s it,’ I said decisively. ‘I’m not going to Nottingham. If you can’t come with me, I’m not having you here on your own all weekend.’

‘
Don’t be stupid. That’s why I didn’t say anything; I knew you’d panic. Besides, I’ve already told you I’m staying at Suzanne’s this weekend. Go. I want you to go.‘

Panic? What did she mean, panic? I didn’t bloody panic. I was the voice of reason around here. ‘ Are you sure?’

‘
Yeah. Anyway, listen, I’d better get a move on. I’ve got a Millinery class in forty minutes, and I haven’t even done my hair yet.’

‘
Want me to give you a lift?’

Stella laughed, a brittle, humourless sound which made me feel like crying. ‘Oh, give it a rest, Emma, I’m not a kid. I wish I hadn’t mentioned it now.’

‘
OK. Well, make me a nice hat then. See you on Sunday night, I suppose. Ring me if you need me, I’ll be on the mobile all weekend. And take cabs everywhere if you’re out late, won’t you?’

Stell retrieved a small pot from her bag, dipping her fingers in the sticky white gel and moulding her hair, twisting it, tamping it down and coating it until the waves began to take shape, like twirls of pasta. ‘Can you give me some money, then? I’m a bit short at the moment.’

Another sore point. We weren’t hard up, thanks to my extreme financial prudence – or, as Stella called it, ‘tightarsedness’ – but she passionately resented the control I kept on our bank accounts, via our accountant. If I were ever to let her loose, she’d spend all her tuition fees on holidays in Ibiza and outrageous designer clothes, probably in the time it took me to decide whether to splash out the extra £2 for mineral water in a restaurant. I gave us both identical allowances, only somehow Stella’s never seemed to go as far as mine did.

It wasn’t worth a disagreement, though, not at the moment. I gave her my last £40, and waved her off down the stairs as if we were parting for weeks, not just two nights. Less than five minutes later, the doorbell rang. Clutching a handful of silver coins, I plodded down to the front door, assuming it was someone collecting for charity.

A single, long-stemmed red rose lay on the doorstep, a small splash of colour against the grey granite. I instantly thought of Charlie, although I wasn’t sure why. After his behaviour, and the threatening message, he was hardly likely to be sending Stella flowers – but you never knew. If he really had been lurking around here, perhaps he was schizophrenic, or obsessed by Stella, despite the damage she’d inflicted on him. Had I not had bare feet, I’d have stamped on it then and there, pulping its petals into a watery perfume to try and dissolve the fear I felt for Stella.

I made a mental note to get her to ring the police and find out why it was taking so long to get the swab analyses back. They’d said the lab was busy, but it had been nearly three months already.

Then I heard a sheepish-sounding and very familiar voice from the direction of the privet hedge.

‘
It won’t bite you – it’s only a rose. Happy Valentine’s Day, sweetheart.’

Gavin stepped out from behind the hedge, wearing his old leather jacket and his twisty-seamed Levis, his bike helmet looped over one forearm like a shield of honour. He was grinning at me, his arms opened wide in my direction. Before I’d even moved a muscle I felt the familiar sensation of being hugged against his warm chest, and the smell of his aftershave, and my cheek itched with longing to be pressed against his shirt buttons.

‘
What are you doing here? Where’s the bike?’

‘
Oh cheers, Emma, is that all the welcome I get? A cuddle and a cup of tea wouldn’t go amiss. It’s not one of your massage days, is it?’ He picked up the rose and twirled it, coquettishly, in my direction. ‘The bike’s just down there, I didn’t want you to see it and ruin the surprise.’

I shook my head, unable to think what to say. I wanted to take a running jump into his arms, strangle him with hugs, inhale the motorbike oil and CK One smell of his stubbly chin, smack his face with kisses. But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

‘
Gavin, you dumped me. You can’t come swanning round here, months later, when you fancy it, expecting me to fall into your arms. I’ve only just got used to you not being around. It’s not fair. And Stella told me you’ve got a new girlfriend. So what are you doing, bringing
me
a rose?’

Gavin scratched the side of his thigh with the stem of the rose. ‘Ah, yes, well, I haven’t any more. Got a girlfriend, that is. She dumped me. Said I was too fat, can you believe it?’

He patted the soft mound of his little beer belly, an outraged expression on his face. Come to think of it, the belly wasn’t as small as it used to be. It looked like something was in the process of melting down the front of his shirt, pooling above his belt in his own private reservoir of fat. And was that half an inch more forehead exposed, in only four months? He’d be as bald as a coot in a year if he continued at this rate.

But he was still Gavin, smiling his wicked smile on my doorstep. Nobody was perfect, I told myself. We were both getting older, and there were plenty of reasons for Gavin to criticise my own body, if he chose to. All in all, he looked pretty good for his age.

Predictably, I relented. ‘I suppose you’d better come in, then.’

To neither of our great surprise, the one cup of tea turned into a lengthy lunch at the River Café - Gavin claimed to be flush from a deal he’d just managed to pull off. I didn’t want to know the details. It was like that with Gavin. Too much knowledge was a bad thing; you just enjoyed the experience. And, half an hour earlier, flying through the streets of Hammersmith on his Harley, my arms wrapped around his waist, the wind whipping my hair in a mad maypole dance across the visor of his spare helmet, I sensed that I was already enjoying an experience of which there might well be more to come.

We had a great lunch. I marvelled at how comfortable I felt with Gavin; how I never felt shy with him, and I talked more than I’d talked to anybody, including Stella, in months. I told him about the man on the tube, all the Ann Paramors, my planned trip to Nottingham the following day, the holistic fayre, the house in Harlesden. For once, he couldn’t jump in and outdo me with one of his own stories, because this was something outside even his realm of experience. He just listened, and nodded, and said, ‘wow’ occasionally. I revelled in the telling, and in the unspoken implication that even though he’d dumped me, I had not fallen to pieces. Instead I was finally doing something for myself – not him, or Stella, or my various aromatherapy clients with their low blood pressure, their dicky backs, or their PMT; but me, Emma.

‘
So you heard about the business with Stella then, and that bloke?’ I asked casually, over sticky toffee pudding.

Gavin made himself an expertly-rolled cigarette, a tiny, perfect cylinder, put together as delicately as if he was constructing a banister for a doll’s house. He sealed it shut with a cat-lick of his tongue, and flicked his lighter open. Then, obviously remembering how much I hated him lighting his smokes while I was still eating, he put the roll-up on his side plate, where it lolled reproachfully. I was impressed at his consideration.

‘
What bloke?’

‘
Charlie, his name is, the one from her college who attacked her. Weren’t you there that day, when she got a message from him on the answer phone?’

Gavin looked out of the window, and although his voice was calm, his fingers fiddled with the cigarette. ‘Oh yeah, poor Stella. I’ve never seen her so gutted.’

You comforted her, didn’t you,
I wanted to say. Suddenly there was a pall cast over the conversation. I was afraid to say it, in case I asked him what I’d been wondering about for weeks now, on and off, what Stella’s shifty expressions and Gavin’s studied casualness seemed to be confirming:
how
much, exactly, did you comfort her?

‘
She all right now, then?’

‘
Well. She seemed to be getting better, but this morning she told me someone’s been ringing the flat and hanging up when she answers – I’m assuming it wasn’t you.’

Gavin gave me a ‘don’t flatter yourself, darling’ look.

‘
He’s really bitter about being arrested and kicked out of college, and now she says that she’s been seeing him hanging around in our street.’

‘
I’ll sort him out for you, if you like. I told her that, and I meant it. I could get Heavy Eddie onto him. Just get a photo and – ‘

‘
Oh, for God’s sake, Gav, you’re not in the bloody mafia,’ I snapped, more harshly than I’d intended, and then bit my lip. Getting cross with Gavin never got me anywhere, however tempting it was. ‘Sorry. I’m just so worried about her.’

He reached out his long dry hand, chapped and sandpapery from riding a motorbike gloveless in winter, and put it on top of mine. ‘Seriously, babes, if he comes anywhere near either of you, you let me know immediately, and I’ll be there, I promise.’

I snorted. ‘This, from the man who takes six weeks to return a phone call? Fat lot of help you’d be in an emergency. I rang you after you came round to see me that time, you know, when I was out and Stella was upset. Why didn’t you ring me back?’

Gavin lit the cigarette and poured me another glass of Chablis. ‘Oh. Yeah. Sorry about that. I meant to ring you but, to be honest, I’d just met Julia and was, well, a bit distracted.’