Close Relations (28 page)

‘Aren't you proud of us?'

‘I'm still a mouse in that respect,' said Maddy. ‘Give me time.'

Erin rolled over to face her. ‘We've got all the time in the world, my love.'

‘Can I sleep in your study? It'll only be for a couple of nights.'

‘I'll creep in and ravish you on my fax machine.'

Maddy said: ‘If you ravished me on your computer, I could be a computer mouse.'

Maddy had cracked a rare joke. Erin smiled, and held her in her arms.

There is always a moment of embarrassment when you first see somebody dance. It is like the first time you hear them speaking French. Jamie was gratified to see that Trevor, despite the dope he had smoked, was even more inept than he was. Trevor was weedily built and belonged to the limp puppet school of dancing. Scowling into the middle distance, he jerked around to his own private rhythm, just disconnected to the beat, as if pulled by invisible strings. April, however, was a terrific dancer. Jamie could hear his father say
natural sense of rhythm
but his father was thankfully absent. Her joy was infectious, however, and Jamie felt himself loosening up. Trevor even smiled – a sight Jamie had only seen once before when, after work, he had pulled out a side of smoked salmon from his jacket.

Jamie was proud, too, to be dancing with a black woman and mouthed at her like a goldfish so that people could see she was with him. The place was crammed. April, perspiring in a short skirt and knitted vest, mouthed back. She was a well-built woman; Jamie tried not to stare at her breasts. They moved up and down within her vest as if they had a life of their own. How weird, to think that his own grandfather handled those each night! Grandad was an old age pensioner. Jamie squeezed his eyes shut and gave himself up to the music. It thrummed through his brain; it shook his bone-marrow to jelly.

Afterwards, they spilled out into the night. Trevor left; he was going to stay with his sister in Streatham. April had invited Jamie to stay the night at her flat.

They walked down the street. ‘Does he ever talk?' she asked.

‘No.'

April opened the front door. They climbed the stairs and she let him into her flat.

He looked around. ‘Wicked place. Wish
I
lived here.'

‘Don't you like living in the country?'

He shook his head. ‘It's not even the real country, it's full of stockbrokers and people who've had golden handshakes. There's nobody like you there –' He stopped. ‘If you see what I mean.'

She laughed. Now he could see her in normal light – not the strobes of The Fridge or the sodium orange of the street – he saw that April's skin was beautiful. It was the colour of the polished conkers with which he used to play. Her teeth were white as milk. Her broad lips were a colour for which he had no words. Blushing, he wondered what it would be like to kiss them.

April went into the other room and brought back an armful of bedding. She pushed the bedroom door shut with her bottom.

‘He's sleeping like a baby,' she whispered.

Jamie took the duvet and put it on the sofa. ‘It's weird,' he said.

‘You mean, me and your grandad?'

‘What do you see in him?' he asked.

‘You been in love yet?'

He shook his head.

April sat down on the duvet. ‘When it happens, it may not be the prettiest girl you know, or the cleverest. If it was like that, what would the rest of us do? Love doesn't work like that, thank God.' She plumped up the pillow. ‘Nothing matters – their age, nothing. You just know, when you're with that person, you're utterly yourself. You're the Jamie you like the best.' She looked at him. Her face was open and frank. ‘I don't care what other people think. Maybe he's looking for another daughter and he'll get it right this time. Fathers always think, if only they had done this, or that. Maybe I'm looking for a father. I don't know. I don't care.'

Jamie blushed. He spoke to the carpet. ‘I think he's really lucky.'

‘We both are,' she said. ‘Believe me.'

It was the next day, Sunday. Imogen was riding her horse. They galloped along the edge of a ploughed field, up along Cobbett's Rise. Her village lay below her, shrouded in mist. Poor souls, she thought, living there so blindly in their fog. Up here it was sunny; she was free. Skylark's muscles moved beneath her; twin plumes of breath pumped from the mare's nostrils. Lapwings rose up, their wings flickering black and white, and skittered down in the next field like glitter shaken from a Christmas tree.

Skylark's neck was damp with sweat; her body heaved for breath between Imogen's thighs. Imogen reined her in and
headed left, towards Blackthorn Wood. With her hand, she checked that the saddle-bag was still there. She had even brought some cans of lager.

Karl's van was parked in the clearing. Imogen's heart jolted. He leaned against a tree, smoking a cigarette. She rode up to him and dismounted.

‘Hi,' she said.

Louise was cleaning out the rabbit hutch. She glared at Boyd. He sat, his ears flattened, in his sleeping quarters.

‘Don't you growl at me,' she said. ‘I don't want to be doing this either. Where's Imogen, you may ask? She's found a new object for her devotion.' She jabbed at the droppings with her trowel. ‘Females are fickle creatures, aren't they, Boyd? You know that by now.'

The phone rang. She straightened up and called ‘Robert!' but there was no reply. She shut the hutch door and ran into the house.

It was Jamie, calling from Beaconsfield station. Louise wiped her hands on a tea-towel. She picked up her car keys from the dresser. Today she felt as if she lived in a saucepan. The lid was squashed down on her; she bubbled up, trying to prise it open with the mere force of her frustration. Of course, it didn't budge. She blamed it on the fog outside, pressing down on her spirit.

Imogen tipped up the can and drained the lager down her throat. ‘A lot of my friends, their parents have split up. But not their grandparents. I mean, grandparents are supposed to stay the same. That's the point of them.' She shivered.

‘Here.' Karl took her hand and rubbed it.

‘I mean, Grandad must be . . .'

‘Doing it,' he said.

‘Don't!'

‘Nasty thought, eh?' he said. ‘Probably give him a hernia.'

She laughed.

He looked at her. ‘You look pretty when you laugh.'

‘Isn't my nose blue?' she asked.

He nodded, and covered her nose with his hand. ‘Your lips have gone kind of purple too.'

She covered her mouth. ‘Don't!'

‘Here. I'll help.'

He leaned over. His lips brushed hers.

‘That better?' he asked.

Her voice shook. ‘You're so warm,' she said.

Karl pointed to his chest. ‘Got me own forge in here.'

She laughed. He tilted her head. Their noses bumped. He kissed her. It was a long, deep kiss. His tongue slid into her mouth. She put her arms around him, inside his jacket, and felt the muscles move in his back.

‘He stayed with them!' Louise stood, with her son, in the kitchen.

‘What?' Robert looked up from the paper.

‘Dad and that girl. Jamie stayed the night with them!'

Robert looked at his son. ‘Is she gorgeous? I don't trust your mum, she's biased.'

‘She's really sorted,' said Jamie.

‘Sorted!' Robert laughed. ‘I can tell you stack shelves for a living.'

‘She's great.' Jamie opened the fridge. ‘She knew the bloke behind the bar.'

‘He slept in the flat!' Louise hissed. ‘Dad made him breakfast!'

‘She's got this wicked coffee-maker.' Jamie pulled out a tub of guacamole. ‘One of those espresso things.'

‘What would Granny say if she knew?' asked Louise.

Robert tipped back his chair. ‘I don't see what's wrong.'

‘It's so disloyal,' said Louise. ‘Whose side is he on?'

Jamie dipped his finger into the guacamole and licked it. ‘Why do we have to take sides?'

The door opened. Imogen came in. She glowed from her ride. Louise said to her: ‘Jamie stayed the night with Grandad and that girl.'

Robert turned the page of his paper. ‘She's gorgeous, apparently. Really sorted.'

‘It's not funny,' said Louise.

‘– the lucky old tosser.'

‘Robert!'

‘Getting his leg over at his age.' Robert turned the next page. ‘Gives hope to us all.'

Imogen flinched. ‘Dad!'

‘And with somebody in a
nurse's uniform
. Oh bliss!'

Monty clambered to his feet and barked. ‘Shut up!' said Louise. He wagged his tail and sat down again.

‘I always had a sneaking liking for the old sod,' said Robert, ‘when he wasn't boring me to death. In fact, on many occasions I've offered him my moral support when you lot –' He indicated Louise ‘– were ganging up on him. Poor bugger was outnumbered. But he's certainly gone up in my estimation now.' He laughed. ‘Good old Gordon, the Humbert Humbert of the building trade.'

‘The what?' asked Louise.

‘
Lolita
,' said Jamie.

‘April's no Lolita,' said Louise. ‘She's thirty.'

Robert leered. ‘Still cradle-snatching, in my book.'

Imogen turned on her heel and left the room. Louise followed her daughter into the hall.

‘Did you have a good ride?' she asked.

‘It was okay,' said Imogen, and went upstairs.

Louise felt rebuffed. Just then Jamie shouted from the kitchen: ‘Bloody rabbit's out. Who left the hutch open?'

It was five-thirty that afternoon. Maddy was making up the spare bed in Erin's study. She fixed her Amnesty poster on the wall so it covered up the gardening diary-planner. She had covered the computer with a Kashmiri shawl. It almost
looked like her bedroom.

She looked round. Allegra stood in the doorway. ‘I won't tell if you give me a Barbie ballerina.'

‘Ally! That's blackmail.'

‘Please!'

‘I haven't got any money,' Maddy said.

‘Doesn't Mummy pay you for gardening?'

Maddy shook her head. ‘It all goes back into the business.'

‘But you do most of the work.'

‘Only because your mum's busy with her book.' Maddy rolled the Blu-Tack into a ball. ‘Please, Ally. It's not nice to blackmail me.'

‘All right. Not the doll then. Just the ballet dress.'

Jamie and Imogen sat in the caravan. It seemed colder in here than outside but Jamie wanted to smoke a joint. He sat on the hard little bed and Imogen sat on the seat that turned into a bunk. They pictured their aunties sitting there, long ago, and telling each other secrets.

‘Mum and Dad, they don't know what love is,' said Imogen. ‘They're so crude.'

‘So what happened?' Jamie offered her the joint.

Imogen shook her head. ‘You wouldn't understand.'

‘Immy!'

‘I love him.'

Jamie took a drag and exhaled it slowly. ‘This bloke, you don't know anything about him. Has he got a girlfriend?'

‘He used to live with somebody but it's all over.'

‘What did he do? Come on, sis.'

‘He kissed me.'

‘Where?' he asked.

‘The normal place.'

‘No – I mean, where were you?'

‘In Blackthorn Wood.' She closed her eyes. ‘It was so beautiful. The birds were singing and the sun came out –'

‘Did he do anything else?'

‘No! It's not like that. Oh, you wouldn't understand.'

He took another drag. ‘Did you feel, like, your best self with him? Even though you haven't got anything in common?'

She stared at him. ‘What?'

Maddy was cooking supper. Her mother leaned over and looked into the pot.

‘That looks interesting. What is it?'

‘Chick peas and okra,' said Maddy.

Allegra looked up from her homework. ‘You know – ladies' fingers.'

Maddy stirred the mixture. ‘I used to eat them in Nigeria.'

‘They go all slimy when you cook them,' said Allegra.

Dorothy asked Allegra: ‘Have you always been a vegetarian?'

Allegra shook her head. ‘When my daddy takes me out we go to Burger King.'

‘Who is your daddy?'

‘He's called Aziz. Mum just used him for his sperm. He takes me roller-skating.'

‘I see.' Dorothy cleared her throat.

‘He doesn't come here much but he sends me faxes.'

‘Faxes?' asked Dorothy.

‘You know,' said Allegra patiently, ‘you phone up a number –'

‘I know what faxes are,' said Dorothy. ‘I mean, that's how you communicate?'

‘I want us to get onto e-mail.'

Dorothy gazed at Allegra's dark head, bent over a page of sums. She thought: is this what has been happening to the world, all these years?

The ground floor of Erin's house had been knocked through to make one big room. They ate in the dining area at the back.
It was painted dark red and smelled faintly of joss-sticks. The walls were hung with tribal fabrics.

‘Was it like this when you moved in?' asked Dorothy.

Erin shook her head. ‘I knocked down the wall, there. Put in the fireplace.'

‘It's quite a job.' Dorothy, who knew about building, had to admire the woman. She didn't like Erin; they had nothing in common and she suspected that Erin found her suburban – invisible, really – just someone who happened to be in her house. Female solidarity obviously didn't extend to senior citizens from Purley who didn't wear jewels in their nostrils. Erin had offered her no word of sympathy about the break-up of her marriage. Maybe she thought that men were so contemptible that Dorothy was well out of it. Dorothy had no idea what went on in Erin's mind, she hadn't met anybody like her before. But she could see how Maddy was drawn to her – there was something inspirational about her, something fiercely independent. Maybe Dorothy could learn to be like that too, one day. One day in the distant future. It seemed impossible to contemplate at the moment. Oh, she had put on a brave front to Gordon but she was terrified. Who wouldn't be? Where, for example, was she to stay after these couple of nights with Maddy? Back to Prudence? Connie in Harrow? Soon she would run out of friends.