Getting Over It (23 page)

“It’s Joop!” whispers Lizzy, when Adam goes to pick up his Mondeo. “But you’re not meant to put that much on.”

I wipe my stinging eyes and murmur, “You don’t say.”

A second later, a white heap with a dented passenger door swerves to a halt in front of us. We jump back to avoid losing our toes. “Lizzy, you can go in the front,” I say sweetly, but she demures. So I get to sit next to Adam, who—with his gelled French crop and gold signet ring and oversize ego—is speedily becoming irresistible. Joke. I shift my feet and try not to disturb the car’s delicate ecosystem of cans, cartons, and copies of
Maxim.
For lack of anything to say, I bleat, “Oh, dear! Your stereo’s been stolen.”

He replies, “Yeah, wank, innit?” and lights up a fag.

Although it’s mid-winter, he winds the window right down and clutches at the roof—presumably to stop it flying off. Happily for all concerned, Adam’s mobile phone rings. Adam spends the next ten minutes shouting stuff like: “Nah! Donna! Nice one! Yeah! She’s stacked!” and I shiver in my coat and say to Lizzy, “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

She coos, “Why not! It’s brilliant living on your own! I love it! Imagine! Not having to share a bathroom!”

I nod and say, “I suppose,” then the car lurches to a halt and Adam jumps out.

Fifty-nine seconds later, we are all sulkily hunched in the car again. I glower at Adam’s black leather shoes (each fetchingly adorned with a metal bar) and squeak, “Well-located for all the local amenities! It’s above a fish and chip shop!”

Adam can’t see the problem. “Sweetheart,” he says, “for your money, that’s whatchure gonna get around here. And you’ll never go hungry!”

I say suspiciously, “Does that mean the other is next door to an all-night petrol station?”

Adam is impressed. “Howdja know?” he says.

“East Finchley’s nice,” says Lizzy comfortingly, as Adam races off. “Maybe you could look there?”

I wrinkle my nose. “It’s too near my mother,” I say. “Let’s find somewhere to sit.”

Fifteen minutes later we are perched at a pub table in front of a bottle of red. I am glugging and Lizzy—having been persuaded “just this once”—is sipping. She is keen to hear the inevitable tale of Marcus and Michelle and shrieks “No!” whenever I try to skip bits. We empty the wine bottle extremely fast. Or as Lizzy says—after two small glasses—“fasht.” She’s a cheap date, I’ll say that much. I order a second bottle and Lizzy hiccups. “I never do thish in the week!” She giggles.

“You never do it at the weekends either!” I say.

The conversation veers onto Christmas. I announce that I’m doing “bugger all” and Lizzy says she’s “helping out at a koup sitchen.” We hoot with laughter.

“Wow. Good for you. But doesn’t it make you sad?” I say when we calm down.

“No,” says Lizzy. “Ish great. Ish uplifting! Ish what Christmas ish all about!”

I pour us each another glass. “What—hassling the homeless so you feel smug and avoid your family?” I say.

Lizzy looks dumbfounded, so I add hastily, “Only joking, but aren’t you seeing Brian?”

Cue an hour-long ramble about Brian, during which
Lizzy
orders another bottle and I think,
But Brian’s so old.
“But Brian’s so old!” I declare, and I clap my hand over my mouth.

Lizzy smacks me playfully on the arm and yells, “I heard you! He’s not old! Well, he’s older, but sho what!”

I shriek, “But it’s like going out with your dad!”

Fortunately Lizzy chooses to find this funny rather than slap my face. She whacks the table, peals with laughter, and squeals, “He’s nothing like my dad! You freaky! He’s older, but sho what!”

Possibly the volume of alcohol swishing round my insides has pickled my brain because I feel unable to contest this assertion. “Yeah! Sho what!” I repeat.

Liz2y takes a gulp of wine and tosses her hair back from her face and giggles. “You’re funny! You’re in denial! That’s what my shycol, shycol… that’s what my friend says!”

Lizzy is so busy flicking shiny hair and trying to pronounce the word “psychologist,” she doesn’t notice my startled expression.

“About what?” I say, the laughter dying in my throat.

“I don’t know!” she roars, lolling in her seat. “Tom, probly!” she sniggers.

I snigger too, and shout “Pooh!” Then we snigger at the word “pooh.” I’m reluctant to stop laughing, so I wheeze, “But he, but he—”

Lizzy teetle-heetles and gasps, “Puts his hand up—” and we chorus together, “Dogs’ bottoms!”

And then I say something that seems like a good idea when I say it. I suggest we go to Tom’s favorite bar. “He lives near here! It’s just down the road!” I say.

“If ish just down the road,” says Lizzy, “lesh go!”

We pay and totter out. “My legsh are like rubber!” sings Lizzy as we lurch along clutching each other for support.

“You don’t have to shout,” I bellow. “I’m right next to you!” When you catch yourself thinking,
I’m dull when I’m pissed
when you’re pissed, there’s no doubt you are very dull when pissed.

“This is it!” I exclaim. “Let’s look in the windows.”

Lizzy is already jumping up and down. She looks like a wallaby in a wig. “I can’t shee!” she complains. “Lesh go in!” and with that she boots open the door and yanks me in.

My life falls off a cliff and splinters in a second. We see Tom. Tom is grasping the hand of an elegant woman. Lizzy shouts, “There he ish!” and falls over. Everyone in the pub, including Tom and the woman, stare at us. I become instantly sober and pull Lizzy off the floor. She uses one hand to stop wobbling, the other to point, and roars, “Helen doeshn’t like you anymore, Tom, cosh you put your hand up dogs’ bottomsh!”

It is small consolation that, as I hurl Lizzy and myself out the door, everyone in Tom’s local is staring at Tom.

Chapter 32

O
NE OF MY MOST USEFUL
habits is blaming other people. Giving yourself a hard time is so tedious and I’m sure it weakens your immune system. But sadly, when I wake up dribbling on Lizzy’s bony designer sofa at 7
A.M.
and wince through the tragedy of last night, there is no denying that the Dogs’ Bottom Disaster is entirely my fault. Alcohol and lunacy aside, what possessed me? What’s it to me if Lizzy drinks cranberry juice? Aren’t I big and bad and ugly enough to get drunk on my own? And what was I on to suggest we ferret around Tom’s pub? What must he think of me? Why did I do it? Am I mad? Have I no shame? What an arse. I’m coming down with a cold.

I stare out of Lizzy’s bay window, watch the pale winter sun glisten on the Thames, and wonder how long Tom has been seeing the woman. Even the fact that my fears and cynicism are justified can’t console me. If I was Tom, I’d be seeing her, too. She looked sharp, glamorous, and together. As opposed to blunt, idiotic, and cracking up. I feel a lump of pain heavy inside me, but I’m too tired to fight it. Anguish washes over me and I let it. I’m defeated. I contemplate emigration to New Zealand, then clench my teeth and hiss defiantly, “So what!” Might as well be a man about it. When Lizzy shuffles into the airy living room wearing a white toweling robe and a woeful expression, I’m picking my nose.

I can tell she’s revving up for a long apology. I hold up a hand. “Don’t!” I say, “It was my fault. And you were very funny.”

Lizzy doesn’t smile. She looks near to tears. She blurts, “I can visit him at work and explain! I will visit him! I—”

I interrupt. “No, you won’t! Jesus, that’ll make it even worse!”

Lizzy strikes a Madonnaish pose (and I don’t mean the Material Girl, I mean Christ’s mother) and lifts the back of her hand to her smooth forehead. She’s incredible. Even hangover chic suits her. “I can’t believe what I did!” she wails. “I don’t drink! I’m not like that! I feel terrible! I’m going to have to detox!”

I giggle nervously—I’ve led the Virgin Mary astray—and wheedle, “But, Lizzy, you only had four glasses—in your whole life! You go into detox when you’re drinking vodka for breakfast!”

Lizzy perches her small behind on a large glass-top table and patiently details the difference between detoxing in a drying out clinic and detoxing on a three-day juice diet. The drying out clinic sounds jollier and I silently vow that if I ever find myself eating raw cauliflower for lunch and six dried apricots as “a treat,” I’ll turn to drink immediately in order to increase my self-esteem.

Lizzy plods mopily into the kitchen and makes a peppermint tea for her and a double espresso for me. She is distraught at having to skip breakfast (“the most important meal of the day”) because she feels nauseous, but tries to be brave. I refuse her offer of a shower and/or low-sugar muesli and collapse on the bottom-bruising sofa again until Lizzy suggests we leave for work.

“I think you should pull a sickie,” I say, studying her fashionably wan face.

“I couldn’t!” she whispers, as if her chrome halogen lamp is bugged. I shrug, retrieve my mobile, and ring my mother.

“Yes?” she says in a bleary voice.

“Mum? It’s Helen!” I say. “I stayed at Lizzy’s last night.”

She sounds confused. “So?”

I pause, then say, “Well, I didn’t want you to worry, I thought you might be wondering where I was.”

She replies, “Oh! Oh. I hadn’t noticed. I dropped Florence home yesterday. I was very tired, so I went to bed early. I was sleeping. You woke me up.” At this point, I lose the will to continue the conversation.

I say, “Mum, it’s practically midday. Will you feed Fatboy when you do eventually get up?” She says yes and cuts off.

“Is she okay?” inquires Lizzy.

“She’s lazy is what she is,” I say.

Lizzy doesn’t know how to respond so she changes subject. “I wonder if Tina will be in today,” she tinkles. I am silent, so she adds, “Do you think she’s okay?”

I bark, “Don’t know, don’t care.”

Lizzy sighs and says, “I know she was terribly rude to you but I’m sure she was sickening for something—she wasn’t in yesterday. If she’s not in today, I’ll ring her.”

I nod. I’m not sure what to think about Tina. I know this much: She isn’t sadistic like Michelle. I decide that if she grovels, I’ll forgive her. She’s as chippy as a french fry, but she’s ultimately a true friend and I don’t want to lose her. Although what she said stung, I’m trying to rationalize it. Possibly I am a raging hypocrite. But I can’t help what I feel. Even if it doesn’t make sense and is more of a surprise to me than anyone. At least Tina was ranting—I’d have been more upset if she’d said it while in control. Maybe I’ll ring her later.

“So when’s Brian back from Hong Kong?” I say to Lizzy, who is desperate (I can tell by the look of ravaged purity) to absolve herself of last night’s sin by harassing Tom.

“Soon,” she replies miserably, and then, “Please let me explain to Tom!”

I clutch my forehead and say, “It doesn’t matter! Anyway, there’s no point. You saw he was with someone.”

Lizzy wails, “But she could have been a friend! Or his sister! You don’t know!”

I grimace and say—as if addressing a very stupid child—“Liz, he was holding her hand.”

Lizzy starts, “Yes, but holding hands can mea—” She sees my thunderous face and stops. She is, in her see-no-evil way, disappointed in me. She pouts and wrestles a small brown bottle from her bag. She twists it open, presses its pipette top, and squeezes two drops of liquid into her mouth.

“What’s that?” I say, sniffing.

“Bach Rescue Remedy,” she replies shortly.

“It smells like whisky,” I growl.

“Well, it’s herbal,” she growls back.

“Hair of the dog, more like,” I mutter.

“What?” says Lizzy.

“Nothing,” I say sweetly. “Just remind me never to get you drunk again.”

“You won’t have to remind me,” she snaps.

I glance at her cross face. She’s wearing a red coat, brown suede gloves, and looks exactly like a sulky china doll. Only the ruffles are missing. “Aw!” I say, “You know the best hangover cure?”

Lizzy regards me hopefully. “What?” she breathes.

“A fried breakfast,” I say sweetly. She says nothing but gives me a small—but remarkably painful—pinch on the hand. “Geroff!” I squeak, and we both giggle. We then lapse into weary silence until we reach the office.

I collapse at my desk and decide to call Tina tomorrow. I have far too much work to do today. I have estate agents, mothers, and vets to harangue. Laetitia is in a meeting so I spend thirty minutes scrounging broom cupboard details off young men with names like Richard and Costas, who are insulted at the piddly sum I have to spend and reluctant to waste their sharking time on a minnow.

Then I call my mother. This time she’s awake. “Hello?” she trills.

“Mum,” I say. “Could you do me a favor?”

There’s an alarmed pause before she says unwillingly, “What is it?”

I scratch around for a trigger phrase and produce, “I need some support.” I wait to see if a neurone picks it up. Silence. I continue, “I need you to take Fatboy to the vet.” My mother replies, “Tim, the vet?”

I say, “Yes, Tom.”

She says, enthusiastically, “Such a charming boy! Clumsy but so charming!” I wonder how to play it.

“Mum,” I say eventually, “Fatboy is unwell. He’s sleeping a lot and I’m concerned that he has, er, sleeping sickness. So he needs to see Tom, urgently, preferably today.”

My mother is unconvinced. She declares, “But cats sleep sixteen to eighteen hours a day! Sixty-six to seventy-five percent of every twenty-four hours! They have light sleep periods lasting about thirty minutes, which is where we get the term ‘cat nap’ from, and then, unless you pull their tail, a deeper sleep phase, which is an essential biological function! They—”

I cut this lecture short by shrieking, “Mother!”

She stops mid-sentence, then says sulkily, “We did a project on it last term.”

Just my luck. “I’m sure you’re right,” I say, trying to remain civil, “but I’d like Tom to check him over anyhow.”

My mother says quickly, “Why don’t you want to take him?”

I squeak, “What do you mean?”

She replies, “I’m not daft, Helen! I’ll be a go-between if you like, but I’m not daft!” An unfair and highly inconvenient statement. The woman plays Clouseau for the whole of my life, but picks now to play Sherlock! This trait—call it the IQ Swing—is just one of the many which make my mother so exquisitely annoying.

“All right,” I say reluctantly, “but promise you won’t say anything to embarrass me?”

She booms, “Of course not! Tell me why you’re not taking him!” I have no choice but to tell her.

“Tom and I had a disagreement,” I say carefully. “Tom made me feel bad when I’d done nothing wrong! Anyway, Lizzy and I went out last night and bumped into him, and er, well, Mum, please don’t repeat any of this, but Lizzy insulted him because he was with another woman.”

My mother gasps and I expect a long ranting tirade about the loose morals of the younger generation but she exclaims, “So what’s wrong with that?”

I shriek, “What’s wrong?! Mum! He gives me all this flack and then it turns out he’s cheating on me!”

She replies snappishly, “Is he sleeping with you?”

Her bluntness floors me, and in a bid to protect her from the sordid truth, I bleat, “Er, no!”

My mother snorts loudly in my ear and barks, “No! Why not? What’s wrong with him? Is he gay?”

I nearly swallow my tongue and whimper, “No!”

My mother is confused. She says briskly, “So if he isn’t sleeping with you, what’s the problem? When I was your age, I dated three men at a time and they liked it or lumped it! All’s fair in love and war until someone proposes!”

Interesting. I don’t argue. I merely say, “I just want you to get an idea of how Tom feels about me right now, and if possible, find out who the woman is.” I add solemnly—wishing I had a gadget to press into her hand—“I’m depending on you.”

My mother gasps again and says proudly, “It all depends on me! Give me the address! I feel like a detective!”

I roll my eyes and say jokily, “Great, just don’t forget to take Fatboy.”

There is a pause and I brace myself for laughter. But she says, “Fatb—? Oh, yes, of course!” I put down the phone and wonder, what’s the worst that can happen?

I’m distracted for two minutes because Richard rings with a “fantastic bijou property” he wants me to see.

“What’s wrong with it?” I say.

“Nothing!” he says in an injured tone.

“Something must be,” I say.

He confesses that it “needs a bit of work.” But it isn’t above a fish and chip shop so I agree to see it tonight. As I replace the receiver, I hear him hiss, “
Yesss
!” Then I pick at the skin on my lip and pray that my mother doesn’t do anything foolish at the vet. I mean, did I just give a handgun to a chimp? I wait and wait, spend an hour trawling supermarkets in search of a vegetable called “purslane” for Laeitita’s dinner party (when I return folorn and empty-handed, she shouts, “Are you completely useless? It’s an ethnic vegetable!”), wait and wait, take a prank call from a pervert who wants me to read out
GirlTime’s
coverlines to him (this month, one of them contains the word “orgasmic”), wait and wait, type in a feature on celebrity cellulite (“It contains tips you could make use of!” sings Laetitia as she plonks the three thousand-word piece in front of me), wait and wait, and when I can wait no longer, ring my mother.

She picks up. “Mum!” I squeal. “Why haven’t you rung?”

She says huffily, “I’ve only just stepped in the door. And I sat in that waiting room for hours! The inconvenience! It took me ages to find the cat! He was out hunting. I was on the doorstep calling him for twenty minutes! I got a funny look from the postman.” I suspect this is because she refuses to call Fatboy by his name and insists on calling him “Pussy.” But I don’t say so because I’m desperate to hear about Tom.

“So did you see Tom?” I say.

“Fuff!” replies my mother, who savors power to the extent that she’d make a fabulous Bond villain. “That cat weighs a ton! Let me catch my breath! No, he wasn’t there. Someone else saw to the cat. He hasn’t got sleeping sickness, but he has got fleas. And Tom’s on holiday with his girlfriend.”