Don't You Want Me? (5 page)

‘Well, yes,’ I say, spearing a carrot. ‘I could. Did you do these with thyme? They’re delicious. The thing is, where would I go? I don’t really fancy taking myself off to the cinema, like a saddo. What am I supposed to do – roam the streets? Go down the station for an hour or two in the Photo-Me booth?’

‘Surely there are people you could go and see?’ He actually looks concerned, bless him, which makes me feel embarrassed and burdensome.

‘That reminds me. I’m going out to dinner at Isabella Howard’s tomorrow night. See? Ha! I’m not so tragic after all.’

‘I’ll watch Honey, then. And I wasn’t saying you were tragic. But what about the other nights? You can’t just stay
in all the time. You’re in your prime, Stella – I mean, what about, you know, dates?’

‘Well, I yearn for them, obviously. But who with, Frank? Seriously.’

Frank laughs. ‘Come on, Stella. It can’t be that bad. You’re an attractive woman. Interesting face. I wouldn’t mind sketching you some time.’

‘I am not a cow. Though a woman at playgroup this morning is. Do you want her number? She’s completely bovine. She’s a manimal.’

‘I don’t just do cows, you know,’ he says, sounding affronted. ‘I mean, I can actually wield a pencil, believe it or not. I do portraits – it’s just I don’t show them.’

‘I know, I know. Sketch me, then,’ I answer, speaking with my mouth full. ‘It’d be fun. So if I’m attractive and presumably not absolutely monstrous on the personality front, where’s the talent, Frank? Show me the talent.’

Frank laughs again. ‘Well, the talent isn’t to know by telepathy that you exist. It’s not going to find you pottering about at home in Primrose Hill. You might have to actually leave the house, Stella. Venture a little further.’

‘Don’t make me sound agoraphobic. I’m perfectly happy to leave the house. Could you pass the potatoes?’

He does. They are heaven, these potatoes: crispy, sticky round the edges with chicken juice, and scented with rosemary.

‘You eat very Frenchly,’ Frank observes.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you eat like you’re hungry.’

‘That’s because I am, idiot-boy. It’s supper time. Would you prefer me to push the food around and only have one tiny half-carrot?’

‘No, no,’ says Frank. ‘It makes a nice change, that’s all. English girls don’t eat like they like it, especially the southern ones. You, on the other hand, often have thirds.’

‘Which Irish people often pronounce as “turds”, have you noticed? Me, I like fourths, if I can help it. Especially if someone’s gone to the trouble of cooking me a delicious dinner, which this is. Could I have some more chicken?’

We masticate happily for a minute or two. ‘Where do you find your dates?’ I ask him. ‘Are they art groupies?’

‘Sometimes. They were in Berlin. But at other times I just meet people, you know, by being out and about. At parties and things. Shall I take you with me next time?’

I don’t think he is being entirely serious, but he does nevertheless have a point: I can’t just sit here gathering cobwebs.

‘Yes, please,’ I say. ‘How about next Friday? You could teach me how to pull, I’ve forgotten how. It’ll be fascinating.’

‘OK,’ says Frank. ‘There’s a party next Friday, as it happens, and we can go for drinks first. And you would pull, you know, Stella, if you wanted to.’

‘Can’t wait. What happened to the screamer from the other night, by the way? Miss Face Pack. Have you rung her?’

‘That was just a shag.’ Frank shrugs.

‘Is that what you’re proposing for me? Because I’m a bit past the old one-night stands. It’s too squalid. I am a mother, you know.’ I say this rather as though I were, in fact, the Blessed Virgin.

‘You,’ says Frank, pointing his knife at me, ‘have never made any bones about being a woman who likes sex.’

‘And?’

‘And if you like sex, then go out and get some. It doesn’t have to be squalid, you know.’

‘No?’

‘No.’

‘I don’t believe you. I’m not up to speed on current sex etiquette either. Probably these days everyone comes on everyone else’s face, and it’s considered perfectly normal, or even rather sweetly old-fashioned. And I couldn’t bear it. Plus, you forget: I haven’t had sex with anyone since Dominic. It would be weird, not having sex with my husband. Surreal, actually.’

‘He’s not your husband.’

‘He never was, if you’re going to be technical about it. The fact remains, it’s got to be pretty damned strange doing it with someone new after all this time.’

‘I guess so,’ Frank concedes. ‘But you’ll have to do it some time, so you may as well get cracking. No point beating about the bush.’

‘Nice choice of phrase, Frankie.’

‘I know,’ says Frank, beginning to snigger. ‘I chose it especially. Ready for pudding?’

My father rings in the middle of all this. He’s coming to London to do some shopping, he says.

‘Aren’t there any shops in Paris, Papa?’

‘
Non, chérie
,’ he croaks in his nicotine-stained voice. ‘The shops are for old men and I am feeling very vital these days. My sap is rising and I need to see my tailor. Could you put me up for a couple of days? I was thinking of coming next Friday.’

‘Of course. I’m out Friday night, though.’

‘I will amuse myself.’

‘You could chat to the baby-sitter.’

‘Baby-sitter?’ he roars. ‘I’ll baby-sit. We can have drinks and watch a movie.’

‘Honey’s only eighteen months old, Papa,’ I say, wanting to laugh: I have a mental picture of my father, wearing a Noël Cowardesque dressing gown, smoking a cigarette, pouring Honey a beaker of gin and it, and settling down to explain the finer points of Truffaut to her.

‘Is she really?’ he asks, sounding surprised. Then he sighs. ‘Goodness, babies grow slowly, don’t they? Compared to the other mammals. If she were a dog, she’d be an adolescent by now. Oh, well, perhaps a cartoon, then. Bugs Rabbit or something.’

And then he says the words that have struck dread into my heart since I was thirteen: ‘I’ve bought you the most fabulous outfit, Estelle.’

My father loves buying me clothes. The problem is, he doesn’t buy outfits, he buys costumes. Aged thirteen, I once had to spend a week dressed as Carmen, in a big red flouncy number, to satisfy his then fixation with flamenco (my mother had to wear a mantilla around the house and kept bumping into things; they separated shortly afterwards). The Carmen outfit wasn’t too bad, in retrospect. My father has also, over the years, bought me the clothes of Brünnhilde (complete with wig), Ophelia (trailing green tissue-paper weeds), Boadicea (‘to honour Mummy’s roots’), a cowboy (inexplicable, this one, but as I say, I think he’s gay), and so on and on and on.

He buys the clothes, and then hangs around so that I have to try them on, and then he insists on taking me out to lunch or dinner, during which he screams with pleasure at the beauty of whatever costume he’s forced me into.
He’s quite eccentric, I suppose, but a dear sweet man, and I couldn’t hurt him by refusing to slip into whatever little number he’s picked for me.

My father is chuckling happily. ‘Have you got anywhere to go, Stella? Because you’ll wow them if you wear my present. You’ll knock ’em dead.’ He is fond of these weirdly Seventies expressions, bless him.

‘We’ll see. What time will you be here?’

‘Four-ish, I expect. I’ll get a cab from Waterloo. See you then,
mon ange
.’

‘
A bientôt
, Papa.’

I turn to Frank, feeling giggly with wine. ‘We may have to go pulling in fancy dress,’ I tell him. ‘My dad’s coming over and he always brings me a costume.’

‘Fine by me,’ Frank laughs. What I like about Frank is that you never need to explain anything to him: he just rolls with the idea.

I creak upstairs, feeling rather well oiled, and reflect that it’s been a great day. I’ve made a potential new friend and so has Honey, lovely Frank’s made me dinner, and I’m really looking forward to seeing my father, gifts notwithstanding. Plus, I’m going out tomorrow and next Friday: why, it’s almost beginning to sound like a normal life.

We have a massive garden, by London standards – I suppose it’s about 100 feet long. As I’m having my morning coffee, I realize that the grass really looks like it needs a haircut: I must mow it, probably for the last time until the spring. I take a last sip of coffee, push away the newspaper (I increasingly ask myself what the point of papers is: giving you that extra little nudge towards the ledge if you’re feeling suicidal?) and put on the wellies which stand by the door.

The lawn mower’s in the shed and the shed is full of spiders. I shoo them away, eyes closed, and hoick out the massive machine. I know you’re supposed to raise the blades, or possibly lower them, so I lug the machine on to the grass and push it upside down, in order to examine its undercarriage. The blades look very rusty. The garden’s lovely though: a sort of damp overgrown wilderness.

‘Hello there,’ says a somewhat reedy voice.

I look around. I can’t see anyone.

‘Over here,’ says the voice. ‘By the bush.’

I look in the direction of the sound and, sure enough, there is a human face right by the holly bush. It’s the face of Tim, my next-door neighbour. He and his family moved in about six months ago and, this being London, aside from the odd ‘Good morning’, I’ve never had much of a conversation with them.

There’s something marsupial about him, I think this
morning, possibly because the light is falling in such a way as to make his eyes glint out in a most unusual fashion. There’s also something weedy about the man, and although he looks perfectly normal – no lips to speak of, though – there is something that powerfully suggests he got daily wedgies at school and hasn’t quite recovered.

‘Oh, hi, er, Tim, is it?’ I smile in his direction.

Quantity surveyor, if I remember rightly. Wife stays at home. Why isn’t he at work?

‘Just mowing the lawn,’ I say. ‘You don’t know anything about moving the blades up or down, do you?’

Why isn’t he budging from the bush, I ask myself? He looks crazy, peering through the spiky leaves like a bushbaby. But now he does, slowly, walking along the side of the brick wall which separates our two gardens and reappearing just above the hostas.

‘Timothy Barker,’ he says, in a slightly nasal comedy voice. ‘At your service.’

‘Stella de la Croix. Bit of a mouthful,’ I say from habit. ‘Just “Stella” will do. Hello,’ I say again, now that I can see him properly. He’s wearing a blue checked shirt and faded brown corduroys.

‘Janice has taken the boys to Majorca,’ Tim volunteers.

Janice is presumably the wife – red hair and lots of gold jewellery. The boys are about ten and twelve.

‘That’s nice,’ I say. ‘Is it half-term?’

‘Indeedy,’ Tim says, nodding solemnly. ‘Indeedy.’

I can tell he’s about to say it a third time, so I nip in with a cheery, ‘So, do you know anything about moving these blades? I’d be really grateful if you did.’

‘
Raising
the blades,’ Tim chuckles. ‘
Raising
, not
“moving”. French, aren’t you? How come you don’t speeek like zis?’

‘I just don’t,’ I shrug. ‘How do I do it? With the blades?’

‘Ahaa,’ says Tim. ‘Ahaa.’

I’m getting a bit bored of this, so I smile vaguely in his direction and then turn my back, applying myself to the lawn mower.

‘Hubby not about?’ Tim bellows from about six feet away, making me jump.

‘We’re separated,’ I say, facing him again.

‘I knew that,’ Tim says, thwacking himself unnecessarily forcefully on the forehead. T knew that. I meant your new bloke.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘Ginger fella,’ Tim says, suddenly speaking like my grandfather. ‘Tall strapping lad.’

‘That’s my house-mate,’ I say. ‘His name’s Frank.’

‘Call it what you will,’ smirks Tim. ‘Takes all sorts, madame, or should I say mademoiselle.’

He’s beginning to annoy me now, so I walk over to the wall.

‘I call him my house-mate because that’s what he is. We share the house. He’s sort of the todger.’

‘Heeeeeeee!’ Tim laughs, clasping his hand to his mouth like a pixie. I wonder if he’s quite all there.

‘Lodger. Lodger,’ I shout, correcting myself. ‘He’s the lodger, and he’s out at the moment, and I really need to be getting on, so if you don’t mind – ’ I gesture at the lawn mower, smile a goodbye and go back to inspecting the blades.

‘Coming over,’ Tim bellows efficiently, moving from the spastic to the businesslike. ‘Won’t be a tick.’

Turns out that raising – or, in this case, lowering – the blades simply involves turning a large plastic button around and then nicking a little lever. I don’t quite see why Tim couldn’t have just told me: we’ve been out here for ten minutes and I could have done it myself by now. He has very capable hands, though: big, square hands with long fingers and clean, pink-and-white fingernails.

‘All done,’ he says after a nanosecond.

‘Thank you very much,’ I say.

He doesn’t move, or stand up, but remains on his haunches, smiling at me friendlily. I’m sure he’s a quantity surveyor, which means he can’t actually be half-witted, or else he couldn’t work, surveying quantities or whatever it is he actually does. But then he’s not working, is he? He’s at home on a Friday. It’s all a bit bewildering: is Tim retarded, or is he not?

‘No work today?’ I ask. I’ve got up, at least, but unfortunately this means that his squatting form is level with my crotch.

‘Day off,’ Tim says, finally getting up.

We stand in silence – a sort of
loaded
silence, utterly inexplicably: how on earth did this come to pass?

‘Anyway,’ I say, T really must mow the lawn now.’

‘I’ll do that for you,’ Tim says, suddenly on the ball again, stretching out the pockets of his cords. ‘Hand it here.’

‘There’s really no need …’

‘It’d be a pleasure. Where’s the extension lead?’ At least he is speaking like a normal human being again.

‘Over there, by the table. It’s very kind of you. Can I get you anything? Tea? A cup of coffee?’

‘Afterwards,’ he says.

Either I’m imagining it, or the way he’s saying it makes the word sound heavy with promise. And although I can’t quite see properly because of the light, I could swear he winked.