Perfect Blend: A Novel (23 page)

“You, too,” she said in a tone that verged on amicable.

THE TWO
women went into the kitchen. Amy put the kettle on and filled a glass with orange juice for Arthur.

“By the way, don’t you think Sam looks a bit like Charlie?” Victoria said, sitting herself down at the kitchen table.

“You think? Mmm. They’ve got similar coloring, I suppose.”

“No, there’s something about the eyes.”

Amy said that now she came to mention it, maybe there was a similarity.

“Oh, by the way,” Victoria said, “I need to get my stuff from the lobby.”

“Stuff? You’re staying?”

“Yes, if that’s all right. Just for a few days until I get myself sorted out.”

“No. Yes. I mean, of course it’s all right. Stay as long as you want. Look, why don’t I go and fetch your case?”

“Would you?” Victoria said. “I’m so exhausted. Simon and I were up all night arguing. I’m not sure I could manage it.”

Victoria took Arthur his orange juice and chocolate cake while Amy went outside into the lobby. There she was confronted by three Louis Vuitton suitcases, a yoga mat, a giant exercise ball, and copies of
Juicing for Life
and
The Caring Parent’s Guide to Child Nutrition
.

“You off on your holidays?” Amy heard a voice say. It was her neighbor old Mr. Fletcher coming out of his flat, he of the British Gas altercation, which had by now been settled to his satisfaction. He was in his “going out” attire: navy blazer with gold buttons and nautical pocket motif.

Amy explained that her sister was staying for a few days.

“Really?” old Mr. Fletcher said with a chuckle. “You sure she’s not moving in?”

“Oh, no, just a short visit,” Amy said with a nervous laugh.

Mr. Fletcher opened the main door to leave. A chap in green overalls was standing outside. “I was just about to ring the bell,” he said. “Delivery for Amy Walker.”

“This is Miss Walker,” Mr. Fletcher said.

Amy frowned. “But I wasn’t expecting anything.”

“No groceries from Planet Organic?”

“What? Oh, God. My sister must have ordered them. All right, you’d better bring them in.”

“Do me a favor, love,” the deliveryman said, “and prop the door open. It’s gonna take me forever to get this lot off the van.”

Old Mr. Fletcher turned to Amy and let out another chuckle. “What was that you said about a short visit?”

Chapter 10

VAL AND TREVOR
brought Charlie home just after five. They’d spent the day at the Natural History Museum.

The moment her mother appeared, Victoria turned on the waterworks afresh. “Simon’s thrown me out,” she wailed.

“I knew it. I knew things weren’t right,” Val said. She put her arms around her daughter and patted her back while offering soothing there-theres.

Arthur, upset and frightened at seeing his mother in tears again, took out his anxiety on Charlie by snatching the model stegosaurus Val had bought him. Charlie responded by snatching it back and lashing out with a splendid right hook, which caught Arthur on the nose. It immediately started to bleed. Arthur started screaming in pain. Amy panicked and found herself shouting at Charlie, who took fright and fled to his bedroom. Val scooped Arthur up and tried to calm him. Trevor handed her a clean handkerchief, which she held under Arthur’s nose. Victoria said she would get some paper towels. “I’ll damp it down to make a cold compress.” She turned to Arthur. “Darling, lean your head back. It stops the bleeding.”

“That’s not right,” Val butted in. “You tilt the head forward for a nosebleed.”

“No, back.”

“That makes the blood run down the throat and might make him gag.”

“That’s rubbish. I know I’m right.”

“It is not rubbish,” Val insisted. “I took the Inland Revenue first aid course, and I am now my department’s designated first aider. So for once in your life will you stop being such a know-it-all and accept that somebody might just know better than you.”

“Right. Fine. Tilt his head forward, then.” Forced to abandon her high horse, Victoria disappeared into the kitchen.

“My God,” Val said with a chuckle. “My elder daughter just listened to something I said.”

“Way to go.” Trevor grinned.

“I’ll say,” Amy said.

They could hear Charlie crying in his bedroom. Amy decided to go talk to him, but he didn’t want to hear. He lay on his bed kicking and thrashing around and telling her to go away. She had little doubt that he was furious with himself for having hurt Arthur and with Amy for shouting at him. In the end she decided to leave him to calm down.

When she got back to the living room, Arthur was sitting on Val’s lap while Victoria pressed a compress to her son’s nose. She immediately turned on Amy and said it was clear that Charlie had anger issues and needed to learn how to curb his emotions. Amy accused Victoria of raising a spoiled, undisciplined bully. Victoria announced she was leaving. Amy said that was fine by her.

For a second time, Val took charge. “Nobody is going anywhere. Now, will you two just behave? Whatever issues you have between you can wait. We need to work out if Arthur needs to go to the hospital.”

Trevor suggested they hang on for a few minutes to see if the bleeding stopped. He crouched down in front of Arthur, assuring him he was going to be fine.

“Trevor,” Val whispered. “Don’t you dare go into one of your trances and start praying for spiritual healing. It’ll scare the living daylights out of the poor child.”

“I wasn’t going to,” Trevor said. He looked back at Arthur. “I could tell you a story to cheer you up.”

“Not if it involves Inuit spirit guides and wolves,” Val hissed.

“It doesn’t,” Trevor said, shooting Val a sharp, get-off-my-back look. “You want to hear a funny story, Arthur?”

He nodded.

Trevor started telling Arthur how when he was a boy he was always getting into fights at school with a boy called Hilary.

Arthur laughed. “Hilary’s a girl’s name.”

“It can be a boy’s name. But it gets worse. He had a twin brother called Lesley.”

“No! That’s a joke.”

“It’s not. Honest. Hilary and Lesley Smelley, they were called.”

Arthur burst out laughing.

“Anyway, one day for a joke, I decided to phone Hilary and Lesley’s mum. When she answered the phone, I pretended not to know her and I said, ‘Are you Smelley?’ She said ‘yes,’ and I said, ‘So what are you going to do about it?’”

This made everybody laugh, even Victoria. By now the color had returned to Arthur’s cheeks.

“Darling, I need to feel your nose,” Val said to Arthur. Victoria, continuing to defer to her mother’s superior knowledge of first aid, removed the compress and let her examine Arthur’s nose.

“I think it could be broken,” Val said.

Amy felt sick with guilt. Even though she felt sorry for Charlie and understood why he had thumped his cousin, she was furious with him.

By now Val was starting to panic and insisted that Trevor take Arthur to the accident and emergency room. Trevor said no problem, but they would have to leave right away as he had the annual Shaman Soul Retrieval Forgathering in Streatham. It started at eight, and he needed get home to shower and change.

“Fine,” Val said, “if you think your shaman shindig is more important than a child with a broken nose.”

“This isn’t a ‘shindig,’” Trevor said, looking wounded. “It’s an important meeting. They’re even planning a vision quest. Look, I’m more than happy to take Arthur to the hospital. I’ll even leave you lot with the car, but I can’t stay, that’s all.”

Val grunted.

Amy decided it was time for her to step in and attempt to bring down the emotional temperature.

“Mum, take it easy. Victoria has her car. If we decide Arthur needs to go to the hospital, we’ll take him.” She paused and turned to her sister. “That’s assuming you’re staying.”

Victoria looked sullen and didn’t say anything.

“I’m sorry,” Amy said to her. “I was angry, and I lashed out at you. Charlie had no right to hit Arthur. He’ll be punished, and I’ll make sure he apologizes. Please stay.”

Victoria offered a shrug, which Amy took as a yes. Only Amy caught Arthur’s weak but nonetheless victorious smile.

By now the bleeding was easing off. Once Val was satisfied it had stopped, she and Trevor said their goodbyes. As the pair disappeared into the hall, the sisters could hear them bickering.

Once the front door had closed, Victoria turned to Amy. “Well, well, well, it seems that Mum has finally had enough of chanting Trevor. If you ask me, it’s only a matter of time before she gives him his marching orders.”

Amy took no pleasure in saying that she could well be right.

The sisters examined Arthur’s nose and decided their mother’s diagnosis that it was broken had been born of panic. It looked a bit red, but there was no swelling, and according to Arthur, the pain had gone.

When Charlie finally allowed his mother into his room, she found him sitting on the bed, drawing a purple monster. “I hate Arfur,” he declared. “I don’t want him here. He steals my stuff.”

Amy explained that Arthur was upset because Victoria and Simon had been fighting.

“Whaddabout?”

“Well, you know how you sometimes get cross with friends at school and you don’t like them for a bit? Well, adults do the same. Occasionally they get angry. But when children see adults shouting at each other, they often get scared and upset. That’s what happened to Arthur. He saw Auntie Victoria and Uncle Simon fighting, and he got really upset. He got even more upset when he saw his mummy crying, and I think he took it out on you by taking your stegosaurus.”

Charlie nodded.

“It was an unkind thing to do, but it didn’t give you the right to lash out and punch Arthur on the nose. You really hurt him, and that deserves a punishment. Tomorrow there will be no drawing for you. I’m taking away your paper and pencils.”

He glared at his mother, arms folded in defiance. “Don’t care.” He kicked his sketch pad and pencils onto the floor. Amy walked over to the door. “I want you to pick everything up and bring it to me. Then you must apologize to Arthur.”

Half an hour later, Victoria had popped out to buy a bottle of wine and Amy was in the kitchen stirring Bolognese sauce. She was just about to put the pasta on when Charlie appeared. He was holding his sketch pad and pencils, which he handed to his mother. She thanked him. Judging by his sullen expression, it was the smell of supper cooking rather than a sense of contrition that had brought her son to the kitchen, but she wasn’t about to question his motives. “Now, then, what do you say to Arthur?” Charlie looked up at his mother as if to say: “He started it. You know he did. Please don’t humiliate me by making me apologize.”

“What do you say?” Amy repeated.

Charlie turned to his cousin, who was standing by the sink drinking a glass of water. “Sorry I punched your nose.”

“That’s all right,” Arthur said with an amiable shrug. “You wanna build a Lego tower?”

“K.”

By then Victoria had returned with a bottle of Barolo. She turned to Charlie. “Well done, you, for saying sorry,” she cooed, bending down to give him a kiss. Charlie looked a bit embarrassed and then charged into the living room with Arthur. Amy called after them to say supper would be ready in ten minutes.

“Of course,” Victoria said to Amy, “you are going to have to come down hard on Charlie’s behavior from now on. I mean, with his anger issues, which clearly stem from him not having a father and you raising him in such a rough neighborhood, you could have an out-of-control yob on your hands before you know it.”

Amy’s instinct was to get hold of her sister’s fabulous blond highlights and pull them out at the roots. She didn’t because hard as it was to hear, she found herself thinking that Victoria might have a point.

That night, Amy put both boys in Charlie’s bed, arranging them end to end. She read them Roald Dahl’s
The Twits
, which had them in hysterics, particularly the bit about when Mr. and Mrs. Twit get their heads glued to the floor. She’d just finished when Victoria appeared. Both women kissed the boys good night and made them promise to go straight to sleep. The moment Amy and Victoria left the room, the boys started jumping on the bed and horsing around. It wasn’t long before it turned nasty and they were kicking and fighting.

Victoria said she didn’t feel up to playing referee, so it was Amy who got up from the sofa every five minutes to remonstrate with the boys. It did no good, so in the end Amy put Charlie in her bed. Half an hour later, both boys were sound asleep.

“God,” Victoria said, draining her second glass of wine. “Do you think Simon and I have traumatized Arthur for life by letting him see us fight?”

Amy decided it was the wine that had induced this rare demonstration of self-doubt. “Don’t be daft. Of course you haven’t. He’s upset and a bit scared right now, but so long as you and Simon resolve things, he’ll get over it.”

“Well, that certainly isn’t going to happen in a hurry.”

The two women stayed up late, talking.

“I just don’t understand why Simon hates me so much,” Victoria said at one point. “What have I done that is so dreadful? I’ve given him two beautiful children. I’ve made a wonderful home for him. I cook. I look after myself. I keep up with current affairs. I’m more than accommodating in the bedroom department.”

Amy made no attempt to challenge Victoria or suggest that she had a part to play in the breakdown of her relationship with Simon. Her sister wasn’t ready to hear that, at least not yet. For the time being, Amy simply listened and helped dry her sister’s tears.

ON MONDAY
morning, when Amy got to work, she found Brian in the kitchen in what was now his usual miserablist mood. It turned out that he hadn’t managed to woo the reluctant Rebecca with his
Seinfeld
impersonations. What was more, his man boobs were sprouting like brassicas in muck.

The only chink of light was that, as of this morning, the builders working on the Bean Machine had walked off the job. According to the postman, with whom Brian was fairly matey, the builders had turned up at the site and immediately started ranting at the project manager over late payments. Brian had no idea how long the strike would go on or to what extent it would delay the Bean Machine’s opening, but the postman said things had looked pretty heavy. Brian was praying the strike would last for weeks rather than days. “Not that it’s going to make much difference,” he said. “It’s only delaying the inevitable.” He paused. “Unless, of course, Bean Machine is suddenly in some kind of financial trouble and that’s why they’re not paying their bills.” He decided the idea was daft. The whole world knew about the billions Bean Machine made in profits each year.

Just after eleven, Bel popped into the café to drown her sorrows in a full-fat, half-caff latte. She hadn’t gotten the part of Ophelia, nor had the Dildo King paraphernalia done much to improve her sex life with Ulf. Not that she wasn’t grateful to Amy for going out of her way to get it. Much to Bel’s dismay, Ulf was stuck on the notion that nature had placed the human mouth at the head end rather than the “toilet” end for a very good reason.

“Don’t let anybody try to convince you that Scandinavians are sexually liberated,” she said, shaking chocolate over her coffee. “It’s a myth.”

“This Ulf reminds me of my Sidney,” Zelma chimed in. “Don’t get me wrong. He loved me to bits, but he was very repressed sexually. The moment I suggested doing something more adventurous in bed, he’d say he could hear his dead mother screaming: ‘Sidney, take that out of your mouth; you don’t know where it’s been.’”

“So are you going to dump him?” Brian said, once they’d all stopped laughing. Amy wondered if she was the only one to pick up on the anticipation in his voice.

Bel said she still liked Ulf and wasn’t prepared to throw in the clit stick just yet.

Brian didn’t say anything.

Just as everybody was commiserating with Amy about
The Daily Post
piece and having Victoria come to stay, she got a call on her mobile from Boadicea. “Look, Amy,” she said, sounding less like she was dragging on a joint than usual, “I’m really sorry about what happened. The editor wanted Jamie. There wasn’t a lot I could do.” Amy was about to have a moan at her for not having let her know what was going on when Boadicea added, “Of course there is a kill fee. Is eight-fifty okay?”

“Excuse me? How much?”

“All right, since we did treat you rather badly and you’re not going to be able to place the piece elsewhere since we’ve covered it, I’ll see if I can push it up to a grand. But don’t tell anybody. We’re supposed to be cutting back, you know—the recession and all that.”