Further Under the Duvet (29 page)

All week men had been coming on to Tandy. Every time we’d gone out she’d spent her time wearily dismissing bottles of champagne and phone numbers and cheap pick-up lines. So why was she going on a date with this James guy? What was so special about him?

‘I’m going to give it my best shot,’ she said. ‘It’s stupid to
keep hoping and –’ She stopped abruptly and put another layer of shine on her cheekbones.

By the time she was ready she was so dazzlingly gorgeous she would take the sight out of your eyes.

Dark and downbeat at the best of times, Nick had gone into overdrive. He slouched on the couch like a human black hole.

‘How do I look?’ Tandy danced into the room and pirouetted in her date finery.

‘You’re blocking my view of the TV.’ Nick rubbernecked as he tried to see around her.

‘Doesn’t she look great!’ I said heartily.

Nick pressed the remote and raised the sound.

‘Nick?’ Tandy asked, above the raucous canned laughter.

‘What can I say, Tandy?’ His voice was flat. ‘You look beautiful. You always look beautiful.’

This seemed to confuse her and some of her dancing, lit-up quality dimmed.

‘You’d be even more beautiful if you ate occasionally,’ he added. She marched from the room and slammed the door. Yikes!

After she’d left, Nick and I watched a movie and ate popcorn in companionable silence. Well, companionable
ish
. Nick was so broodingly self-contained, I couldn’t help sneaking glances at him. Suddenly he turned and caught me looking. After more silence, he spoke: ‘How come you’re not on a date tonight, Grace?’

‘No one asked me. Tandy’s so beautiful,’ I shrugged, ‘it’s hard not to disappear beside her.’

Alright, so I was milking it.

‘Aw, but you’re so cute,’ he said softly, swinging his legs off the table and moving closer along the couch. ‘You’ve got these curls,’ he wound a hand into my bouncy hair, ‘and beautiful skin,’ with his other hand he touched my face, ‘and a perfect mouth…’ With his thumb he pulled gently at my lower lip and moved his face so that it was level with mine.

He was going to kiss me. And I wanted him to. My heart was knocking echoes into my ears, and I was wound tight with longing. I leant into the heat of him, feeling the grip of his hand on the back of my head and then, and then… Something changed and it was all trickling away.

‘I’m sorry,’ he said, pulling back with a heavy sigh. His eyes were weary but the touch of his hand on my face was kind. ‘I’m so sorry, Grace. It’s not you.’

‘Whatever.’ But my voice was helium high and didn’t convince.

I burnt with humiliation. What made things worse was that I’d been enjoying the movie and now I had no choice but to slink away to my room.

I’ll level with you. Of all the seven sins, Lust was the one I’d been most looking forward to. And see what had happened – over before it had begun.

The phone rang and I heard Nick saying to some heartbroken girl, ‘I’m sorry, baby.’ The line he’d been saying all week since I arrived: he was like a broken record. And some kind of understanding began to stir in me, something to do with Tandy saying that things would never work with her and Nick because there were all these women around him… But before my realization was fully formed the doorbell
rang and I lost my train of thought. I’ve always had a very short attention span.

I strained to hear who it was.
Please don’t let it be a girl
, I begged. But thank God, it was only crazy, alcoholic Karl. Who, if Nick was to be believed, was no longer so crazy or so alcoholic. They left to shoot some pool.

My last day on earth. That sounds really dramatic, right?

I’d successfully completed my mission, done all seven of my deadly sins in six days and I was shipping back to Up There this evening, a more confident, experienced,
humane
angel. Yet I was left with the feeling that there was still something very important to do. THE most important thing, actually.

It was another beautiful morning. Granola was scampering around chasing dust motes but as soon as I came into the room he bolted to his basket and crouched in it, trembling. Looks like winning the dog over isn’t going to be one of my success stories.

Tandy was swinging around the apartment taunting Nick.

‘I had the best time last night. James is really cute and smart and funny.’ She was watching Nick very carefully as she said all this, but he was utterly engrossed in the sports pages.

‘He is the funniest guy,’ Tandy said dreamily. ‘Let me tell you what he –’

With a sharp rustle of paper, Nick sat up. ‘So, you gonna go out with him again?’

‘What do you care?’

‘You’re right, I don’t.’

They stared each other down, looking like they hated each other.

Clearly, they were in love with each other. How had I not noticed until now? Well, last night, really. At least I got it in time.

I needed to speak to Tandy; there wasn’t much time before

I left for home.

‘Nick…’ I began.

‘That jerk!’

‘Yeah. So let’s see if I’ve got this straight. You slept with him –’

‘I was loaded,’ she furiously defended herself.

‘Then afterwards nothing happened and you were cross because he always had a bunch of girls around him.’

‘Yeah.’ She sounded uncertain, as if she wasn’t really sure where this was going.

‘But,’ I said dramatically, ‘since I’ve been here I admit there have been a lot of girls around but Nick keeps telling them to go away. Seems to me he’s clearing the decks.’

‘For what?’

‘Dduuuuhhh! For you! Who do you think?’ Well, it certainly wasn’t for me. Not that I was sore. Angels don’t really do sore. But if I wasn’t an angel I think I might have been very sore indeed. Anyhow…

‘For me? You think?’ Tandy couldn’t keep the hope out of her voice, then she changed tack. ‘He thinks I’m anorexic.’

‘You are very thin,’ I said carefully. ‘And you don’t seem to eat very often.’

‘I’m not anorexic,’ she yelled. ‘I’m –’

‘Yes, I know; you’re an actress.’

‘No. I’m in love with him! I was a hundred and twenty pounds before I moved into this apartment.’

‘When exactly was that?’ I was very keen to know how long it took her to lose thirty pounds.

‘A year ago. Back then I used to play a lot of fat best friend parts.’

‘Like me!’

‘Just like you. I preferred them to the hooker roles I get now.’

We were getting diverted from our main purpose.

‘So what about James?’

‘Oh he’s an asshole,’ she said dismissively.

Next stop, Nick. We hadn’t spoken since he’d acted as though he was about to kiss me, then changed his mind with those immortal words, ‘It’s not you.’

Anyone who’s ever been told, ‘It’s not you,’ knows immediately that it
is
them. But this particular case is the one exception. It wasn’t me – it was Tandy! Nick loved Tandy, but old habits die hard and a ghostly flicker of his former behaviour meant he’d probably felt it would be
impolite
not to try to jump me.

He was on the deck, staring at nothing.

‘Can we talk?’

The poor guy looked horrified. He thought I was going to be a girl and insist on doing a big analysis of how we nearly, but not quite, got it together the night before.

‘Sure,’ he croaked, doing a wild retreat behind his eyes.

I sat down and smiled reassuringly at him. Okay, so he hadn’t found me attractive. But I’m bigger than all that. Well, I’m working on it.

‘About Tandy…’ I began.

‘Yeeaaahhh?’

‘Since I’ve been here, you’ve been on the phone a lot saying goodbye to girls. Is it because of her?’

He tried to stare me down. But I can stare longer and harder. Sometimes it’s
great
being a supernatural being.

With a sigh he caved in. ‘Okay. I wanted her to know that I wasn’t going to be fooling around with anyone else. But what happens? She goes on a date with cute, smart, funny James.’

‘He’s an asshole.’ I was thinking how
lucky
it was that I was here. They’d never sort this mess out if I wasn’t.

‘Says who he’s an asshole?’

‘Tandy.’

‘Yeah? For real?’ A rare smile played on the corners of his mouth. He really
was
devastatingly attractive.

If you like that sort of thing.

‘You two need to talk. But you’re kind of hard to approach, you know?’

‘I wasn’t always like this,’ he bristled. ‘I was a really happy guy until she moved in. But I see her, so beautiful, and I, you know, I get, like, depressed. I usedta do a lot of comedy roles once, now I only seem to get offered psychos.’

‘Talk to her now,’ I commanded, very excited about the way things were going.

But before we got any further, we had a guest.

‘Karl!’ Nick exclaimed. ‘So have you met Grace?’

It was the pale, ill-looking man who’d been lying by the pool. He was also – though I hadn’t recognized him – the shouty smelly bloke I’d accidentally called on when I’d first arrived in Los Angeles nearly a week before. He certainly scrubbed up well.

‘It’s you!’ he sort of gasped.

Yes, it was indeed me. No point denying it.

He ran his eyes over me with the same sort of awed wonder that Granola looked at me with.

‘What did you do?’ he asked. ‘You called into my apartment and when you left I didn’t want to drink any more. Then you stop me from burning in the sun.’

‘How’d she do
that
?’ Nick demanded.

‘I put suntan lotion on him.’

‘Who are you?’ Karl wondered. ‘Some sort of angel?’

Nick followed the exchange with interest. I knew Nick had had his suspicions about me, so I was surprised when he said matter-of-factly, ‘She’s Grace from Hicksville and you were long overdue to quit drinking, buddy. It’s no biggie.’

Karl was adamant. ‘I know you’ve had something to do with it. Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome,’ I said shyly.

‘I knew it!’ Karl said.

‘Karl, buddy,’ Nick cut in. ‘Can I catch up with you later, I got something really important to do.’

‘Sure.’

Tandy was in her room and, after a push from me, Nick knocked and went in. I was going mad wanting to know what was happening, but I wasn’t able to see through the
wall – I really needed to do some work on my X-ray vision. Luckily, though, Nick didn’t fully close the door behind him, so through the narrow gap I could see Tandy.

First she looked a little suspicious, then she was listening, then she smiled and said something. Another bit of listening, then suddenly Nick was also in the frame, taking her in his arms and holding her like he was never going to let her go.

The situation was just begging for a soundtrack. I simply couldn’t resist it – the air trembled and swelled with the sublime sound of heavenly violins. In his basket in the kitchen Granola began to howl happily along with it.

Previously unpublished
.

Q.
Dear Mammy Walsh, I’m writing to you with quite an embarrassing problem. It’s my boyfriend. When he ‘wees’, he sprays it everywhere. The bathroom is spattered with drops and smells disgusting. I’ve asked him to be more careful but he hasn’t. What should I do?

Fiona, Edinburgh

A. In the early days of our marriage, Mr Walsh was guilty of the same carry-on. My advice to you is, rub his nose in it.

Q.
Dear Mammy Walsh, I have a daughter who says she’s a lesbian and she walks up and down our road holding hands with her ‘partner’ in broad daylight. I am mortified. What should I do?

Anon, address withheld

A. Dear Marguerite (I recognized your writing), I won’t plaw-maws you because I’ve seen them myself with my own two eyes, and everyone in the cul-de-sac gawking out from behind the curtains at them. They don’t care who sees them and they even stopped beside my leylandii for a ‘snog’. But the thing is that Angela is a lovely girl and she’s only looking for notice. They all do it, daughters, and I have often wondered if a son would have been any easier. If daughters are not being lesbians, they’re insisting they’re vegetarians or
drug addicts or hiding in wet hedges with a long-range lens, catching throat infections, then spending a week in bed belly-aching for Lemsip and KitKat Chunkies. It’s the cross we mothers have to bear. Offer it up, Marguerite. Think of our Lord on the cross, with six-inch nails through his hands and feet, dying for our sins and several people not even grateful.

PS Maybe your husband, Mr Kilfeather, for once in his lazy, gombeen life, could help out by having a little word with her. Small wonder she thinks she’s a ‘lezzer’ with him as her only male ‘role model’.

Q.
Dear Mammy Walsh, can you help with a dilemma? I love to read ‘chick-lit’ books, they cheer me up, especially the happy endings where the heroine always gets her man. However, I recently read an article where a leading feminist criticized these books as being ‘anti-feminist’ and deleterious to the cause of female equality. I was terribly shocked because I’ve always thought of myself as a committed feminist but one who believes in love between men and women. Please help.

Camilla, Gothenburg

A. I am sick to my craw of feminists. They’re nothing but shouty, bad-tempered termagants who try to make women feel guilty about everything. They’re worse than men. Telling me that I’m letting myself be exploited by wearing a bra and cooking Mr Walsh his dinner! As it happens, I
don’t
cook Mr Walsh his dinner and haven’t since the early eighties. It wasn’t that he was exploiting me, it was because those five brats of daughters never ate anything except bowls of Frosties. I’d cook myself blue in the face and they’d laugh
and pretend they didn’t know whether the end result was animal, vegetable or mineral. So, I thought, I’m not going to make a gom of myself, slaving over a hob when I could be watching
Neighbours
and playing bridge. But it’s not because I’m a feminist, it’s just because I no longer fecking felt like it. And nor do I do much housework, but that isn’t because I’m afraid of being exploited there either, it’s because I have a bad back and can’t do much bending (hoovering is out). Show what an independent, free-thinking woman you are by reading what you like and telling the feminists to stick it.