Courting Trouble (15 page)

I’d moved in with my mother, for better or for worse – but not to share shower facilities with suspected murderers.

Court 15 at Snaresbrook Crown Court in North London was packed with press eager to catch sight of the ball-blasting grandma during her bail hearing. Her case had become a
petite cause célèbre.
I made my application to the judge, pointing out that my frail, pensioner client had never offended before, apart from a one-off bit of shoplifting, even managing to get in a judge-amusing little aside about how the only cure for kleptomania was to ‘take something for it’. Having wrung a small chuckle out of the court, I then went on to explain that Phyllis was a woman of very good character. I laid it on so thick, Phyllis was starting to look long overdue for a halo-fitting.

The judge seemed sympathetic, until the barrister for the other side objected to bail on the grounds that it was for Phyllis’s own good. He maintained that, having committed such a serious offence against two popular locals, my nut-crunching gran would fear for her own life on the estate and that she’d be safer in prison. The judge concurred. He sat back to weigh up his options. That was when my solicitor, who just also happened to be my mother and my landlord, tugged at my robes from her seated position on the bench behind me. I half turned to face her.

‘Pssssst! Get the judge to release her into my custody,’ Roxy whispered.

It’s no exaggeration to say that the moment of silence between us was a tad tense.

‘Did I mention the fact that Phyllis has been watching
Cordon Bleu
on the cooking channel while she’s been on remand? She’s already mastered coq au vin. Which I suppose is quite ironic, under the circumstances,’ my mother chuckled.

More silence from me, but my brow was speaking volumes.

‘Oh, and Chantelle must move in, too, of course. She can’t face her friends, so she’ll have to be home-schooled,’ she added in a low-pitched postscript.

‘Is that all?’ I whispered back sarcastically. ‘Really? No asylum seekers or deported opposition leaders you’d also like to invite into your teeny-weeny terrace?’

‘No . . . That’s all. Well, apart from Phyllis’s ferret.’

It took a beat for this news to sink in. ‘A ferret?’

‘Well, yes, it belonged to her husband, when he used to go rabbit hunting. The dead hubby with the hunting rifle, remember?’

‘How could I forget? It’s the weapon in our attempted-murder trial,
remember?
’ It was an effort to keep my voice down. ‘The trial in which we are supposed to
stay objective and not get too involved with our clients?
’

‘Phizz is more than a client. She’s a friend now.’

‘Um. Let me see. How can I put this? . . . No!’ I swivelled back to face the bench, but Roxy tugged my robe more violently.

‘Chantelle’s in no fit state to testify to the CPS. We need to keep her safe and buoyant and build up her confidence before her rape case comes to court,’ my mother insisted in hushed tones. ‘If she’s living with us, I can boost her energy levels with ginseng and get her reading Simone de Beauvoir.’

The press were straining forward from the gallery, trying to overhear our heated, sotto voce deliberations. I smiled up at them before hissing at my solicitor, ‘Phyllis moves in with us over my dead body.’

‘Really? I think I’ll wear black. Black is dead classy at a funeral. Look, I don’t particularly want the ferret either. The neighbours were looking after it, until it ate their cat.’

‘How comforting,’ I muttered.

‘But it can’t be left home alone. The RSPCA would be on to us in a heartbeat.’

‘I’m calling the RSPCD – the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Daughters.’

The judge, a genial man in his mid-sixties with a head as bald as a boiled egg, had started to harrumph a bit, a pompous noise taught to perfection at Judge School. I looked over at Phyllis, in the dock, and she turned her face upward and smiled hopefully, like something frozen and in need of warmth.

‘You can’t send that poor old granny back to prison. Her cell is so small, if she turns around too fast she’ll sexually harass herself.’

‘Miss Devine?’ the judge pressed.

With time running out and no other options immediately leaping to mind, I heard myself putting forward Roxy’s suggestion. The court was now satisfied that Phyllis could be placed on conditional bail. The judge ordered her to put forward surety amounting to £20,000. The Countess agreed to put up the money and Phyllis was released into Roxy’s residential custody.

With a curious press corps massed outside, we huddled for a quick confab. It was decided that Phyllis would leave through the service exit with the Countess. They would collect the crumpled Chantelle from her friend’s flat and ensconce her in our tiny spare room. Roxy and I, meanwhile, would act as decoys, leaving via the front of the court, then, after shaking off the reporters with some nifty Grand Prix-type manoeuvres in Roxy’s MG Midget, drive to Phyllis’s flat to pick up some of our impromptu house guests’ belongings. We would all then meet at Roxy’s house in an hour or so.

All the way to Camden, pinballing around narrow side streets in Roxy’s sports car with the soft top stuck at half mast, my hair flying in my face as I clung on for dear life, I fumed at myself for allowing my mother to railroad me into this living arrangement. Steve had often complained that I could never take responsibility for anything, ‘Yes, and I blame my mother for that!’ I would joke back. But there was some truth in what he said.

‘That went bloody well, Tilly. Excellent teamwork,’ my mother pronounced happily once we were safely en route to the Tony Benn Estate, press successfully evaded. ‘Our union at Pandora’s is so solid because we have so much in common.’

‘Yes,’ I sulked. ‘Ethical disagreement, polar-opposite views on everything and occasional mutual contempt.’

My mother hooted. ‘That’s why it’s a good idea to love your enemies. Just in case your friends and family turn out to be unbelievably bloody annoying.’

Phyllis’s flat was situated on the first floor of a low-rise block at the quieter, greener end of the estate. I reluctantly chugged up the stairs behind Roxy. On the landing, she stopped dead in her tracks, causing me to crash slap bang into her back. Just as well I wasn’t marching with a fixed bayonet, I thought idly, peering over her shoulder. Then I saw what had caused her derailment. The word ‘Slut’ had been written into Chantelle’s front door. But turps wouldn’t aid us now. The word was graffitied in bullet holes – a kind of lead calligraphy.

‘So tell me, Mother,’ I finally squeaked, ‘do you know whether our work insurance policy covers
gaping chest wounds
?’

‘Scare tactics. Pathetic. We will not let those rapist thugs intimidate Chantelle into not giving evidence to the CPS.’

‘Really? In general, I kinda find it best not to antagonize anyone better armed than me,’ I said, trying to keep the edge of panic from my voice.

My mother whirled around to face me. ‘Tilly, we have to try to encourage the poor girl to stand up to these pissants – whether they release their shitty phone footage or not. It’s horrifying how rape has become part of the warp and weft of daily gang life. These girls don’t complain, they don’t go to the police. It becomes just what happens. If a girl is linked to a gang member and he meets her at the school gate and says “Go with me” – she goes. Saying no is not an option. If Chantelle doesn’t stand up to them now, they will always have this over her. That’s no way to live your life. We can’t let them destroy her.’

‘But we can’t let them destroy our lives either! I have my own daughter to worry about.’ I turned on my phone to call the police.

My mother put her hands on her formidable leopardskin-trousered hips. ‘Those knuckle-draggers don’t scare me. I can protect us.’

‘With what? A pocketful of high-calibre jellybeans?’

Roxy turned the key in the lock. Phyllis’s apartment was charity-shop chic, and threadbare but eat-off-the-floor spotless. Cutesy-pie knick-knacks lined every shelf – the kind you see in souvenir shops and wonder who’d ever buy them: big-eyed dogs in sombreros, ceramic dolphins in snowballs – an entire kitsch menagerie beamed at us. Roxy hurriedly packed some of Phyllis’s things, while I took the stuff I thought Portia would need if it were my daughter going into hiding. The ferret was thrust at us by a furious neighbour. It growled from its cage all the way back to the car. I knew just how it felt. The police pulled up just as we were leaving. Before taking photos of the door, they lowered Roxy’s soft top so we could at least drive home without gale-force-5 winds blow-drying our locks into crazy creations.

‘Gee, now the roof’s down, it’s stuffy in here, isn’t it?’ I said facetiously, as we hit the road once more. ‘Oh, but wait. No need to worry. Because any minute now, drug bosses will be
ventilating our car with bullet holes
. . .’

‘Well, aren’t
you
a little ray of sleet?’ Roxy chided.

‘Most mothers look a little sheepish because they ate all the chocolate. Or, I dunno . . . forgot to bring in the washing. You look sheepish when you can’t remember the name of the toy boy who’s strapped to your roof rack or because you moved a client who has just shot the testicles off two gang members into your house, making your whole family a target for trigger-happy psychos. Why, oh why, can’t I have a normal mother?!’ I moaned.

I was still fuming when we walked into the house some fifteen minutes later. But then my mother nodded towards the little box room off the hall which she’d converted into a spare room. She nudged open the door with a hip. Chantelle was sitting on the edge of the bed, hunched into herself, as if freezing cold despite the overheated room. Roxy called her name softly and she looked up, startled. Roxy offered her the ferret cage. Chantelle perked up momentarily, but then caught sight of herself in the mirror and flinched as if scalded. She then retreated back behind a veil of sad bewilderment.

Roxy closed the door quietly and sighed. ‘It really doesn’t matter where Chantelle is now. When a woman can’t feel comfortable in her own body, she has no home,’ she said bleakly. ‘There’s no emotion left in her. It sounds mean, but I’m desperate for her to start crying again just so that she lets go. With her living here, we can really help her.’

‘Yes, because we really are such a functional family,’ I mocked, as one of Roxy’s more gassy foster dogs bounded by, farting loudly. I now had an idea what the mustard-gas attacks must have been like in the World War One trenches. It was while gagging and rolling my eyes to heaven that I noticed one of my mother’s peek-a-boo leopardskin teddies dangling from the chandelier.

I was balanced precariously on a chair, stretching ceilingward to retrieve it when the Skype on my iPhone buzzed. Roxy answered it before passing the phone up to me. Jack’s amused face came into view. He was ringing to arrange our date. When I explained to him why this wasn’t the best time to talk, detailing my rather unusual afternoon and my present predicament, retrieving my mother’s lingerie from a lightbulb, he roared with laughter.

‘Ah, Matilda, I can always count on you to bring a little sunshine into my day,’ he chortled. ‘Call me when you’re free.’

By the time I’d pocketed my mother’s smalls and made it to the kitchen, Roxy was dipping her varnished nail into a persimmon and white chocolate tart Phyllis had whipped up for dessert. ‘Ah!’ Roxy sighed. ‘What every feminist has always wanted. A wife! At last!!’

I flared my nostrils. Warm and tangy aromas were wafting from the stove.

‘One man’s meat is another woman’s Sunday gone,’ Phyllis said, stirring some exotic-looking sauce. ‘But I’m more than ’appy to cook for us girls.’ She was positively luminous with joy to be out of jail.

‘You see?’ Roxy enthused. ‘It’s going to work out wonderfully. We’ll lead a quiet, stable, normal life here all together until the court case.’

I chose this moment to hand back her leopardskin peekaboo teddy. She surreptitiously slid the lacy ensemble into a kitchen drawer.

‘It’ll be so much fun! Just like those communal Greenham Common days all over again! We’ll all look after each other while at the same time helping Phizz and Chantelle to stay stoic!’

But stoicism, I was about to discover, is the ability to keep on smiling when a guest stands at the open door and lets all the flies in . . . So much for leading a quiet and simple life. Half an hour later, the press were foaming out of their cars like suds from a sitcom washing machine and oozing towards our front door.

I typed an urgent text warning Portia to use the back lane. But before I could press ‘send’, I glimpsed her through the window. With fear rising in my chest, I saw her submerged in the sea of photographers. Like a toddler in big surf, she disappeared from view, only to resurface, then vanish again. By the time I’d raced down the hall and flung open the door, she’d been jostled so badly that she’d dropped her school bag, spilling books across the road, and a foot had come out of one shoe.

Phyllis made it to the door at the same time as me. ‘Oy! You gobshites! Shut it, or I’ll do youse!’ she yelled, which I believe is Cockney for ‘Warning! Brain pulverization imminent.’ A blizzard of lightbulbs flashed as the press got their snap of the Deranged Gonad-shooting Gran waving her cooking knife about threateningly. I sighed. Phyllis may be a good cook, but we were tabloid toast.

Roxy charged past me to haul Phyllis back over the threshold, while I made a dive for my daughter. ‘Are you okay, darling?’

‘I’m fine, Mum,’ Portia said, once we’d slammed the door shut on the buzzing hornets’ nest of press. ‘My sunnies didn’t make it, though.’ She held up her mangled heart-shaped shades. ‘Oh hi, Chantelle. Look, I have a broken heart,’ she said, her nose crinkling adorably.

We all rotated, to see Phyllis’s granddaughter standing in the doorway of the spartan spare room.

‘Mum says you’re moving in for a while. I’m so glad. I’ve always wanted a big sister,’ my daughter added kindly. ‘How are you?’

‘I hate myself. I just feel proper dirty and disgustin’. Like I’m worth nothin’.’