Singled Out (3 page)

‘Sounds like a fair exchange. Are you going to put the decorations up now? Can I help?’

‘Why not?’ I said, waving my glass expansively. ‘There’s the tree, and I’ve made gingerbread stars, and I’ve got two dozen candy canes, and little chocolate umbrellas and—’

‘You do go over the top at Christmas, don’t you? Must be that strict childhood you had.’

‘I love Christmas! Even Christmas on my own,’ I enthused.

‘You haven’t been alone on Christmas Day since Mike left me,’ she pointed out. ‘You, me, Jason and turkey at my house as usual?’

‘And Tom,’ I added.

‘Into every pot of ointment a fly must fall. With any luck he will drink too much and pass out like last year, and Jason will have to take him home early,’ she consoled me.

*   *   *

Actually, it turned out that there were three flies in the jar of Seasonal Balm, and the major one was that by Christmas Day Max had failed to send me even a card, let alone a present, and I knew there was little chance that he would be able to slip away and phone over the holiday.

Tom, bluebottle number two, was indeed present at Orla’s house for Christmas dinner, the price we have to pay for our friendship with Jason. It is a constant amazement to me that he could father so objectionable a child. (Or
man,
I suppose I should say, since he is now at university.)

After Jason and Tom had finally gone home, replete and bearing foil-wrapped parcels of left-over turkey and pud, Orla revealed the existence of the third fly to me.

‘I’ve thought up a new act for Song Language,’ she told me as we cleared the festive board.

Song Language is the name of the singing telegram service she set up after Mike left in order to try and maintain the standard of living to which she was addicted.

She’s a Marilyn Monroe look-alike herself and she’d soon talked
me
into a Vampirella costume (which was not much different to my normal look, actually) and a couple of other people into even more improbable garb.

‘It’s a great idea,’ she said now, tossing the turkey carcass arbitrarily into the dustbin, because as she pointed out, who wants to see turkey ever again after Christmas Day?

‘You have?’ I said cautiously, hoping it didn’t involve me.

‘Yes.
You’re
going to double up as Wonder Woman! Won’t that go down a bomb?’

‘Me? Wonder Woman? You mean, like that old TV series with Lynda somebody – Carter – terrific figure and a mouth like a ventriloquist’s dummy?’

‘That’s the one. You’re tall and dark-haired, and you’ve got the figure for the costume,
and
the legs for the boots, too.’

‘I haven’t got the mouth though, or her really light-coloured eyes. Mine are just grey, putrid grey.’

‘Putrid?’

‘Sorry, I meant pewter. Must have been thinking about something else.’

‘As usual. And you don’t have to be an exact copy, just near enough to give the impression,’ she wheedled. ‘I bet it would be even more popular than the vampire thing.’

‘Yes – with men. Why does the thought of walking into pubs and parties dressed only in a push-up swimming costume and kinky boots not sound all that attractive to me, I wonder?’

‘And tights and a tiara thing,’ Orla said persuasively. Seeing I was far from convinced, she added: ‘We could send Jason out with you as a minder, if you’re afraid things might get a bit out of hand.’

‘No thanks, he’s bad enough when I’m dressed as a vampire! As Wonder Woman I’d need a minder to protect me from the minder.’

‘Think about it. It would mean even more money.’

‘I’ll think about it, but I can’t imagine doing it! It takes me all my courage to do the vampire act, Orla.’

I resisted all her persuasions, but she is unlikely to let her idea go that easily.

*   *   *

While I knew it was unlikely that there would be a message on my answering machine from Max when I got back, I was illogically deeply upset when there was nothing more than the standard message from Pa, who takes no account of such debauched festivals as Christmas.

‘You will burn in hell, girl, for your sins lie heavy on your soul! Yet the adulterer is gone from you, and if you truly repent now and serve the Lord, you may yet escape the fiery flames of eternal damnation! Your brother James, too, is a drunken harlot,’ he added.

Clearly sweet baby Jane has been telling tales again. I wonder what poor old Jamie has been up to now? And aren’t harlots usually women?

‘Spawn of Beelzebub,’ he finished rather predictably, and I was just thinking: ‘Ho-hum, nothing new there, then,’ when his message was followed by my name uttered in a small, breathy voice. Familiar – yet strange.

‘Repent, Cassandra – it’s not too late,’ whispered Ma, before quietly replacing the phone, a pale Ghost of Christmas Past.

Why? Why did she send me a message after so long? Did it mean that she did, deep down, care about me?

Or perhaps it was just that Pa had told her to do it?

Unsurprisingly, I felt somewhat forlorn and unsettled for quite a time after this. Do not think, though, that I sat moping and alone on Christmas evening without a greeting or gift to my name.

I’d already exchanged presents with Orla and Jason (a book called
Everything You Need to Know About Last-Minute Pregnancy
from Orla, and an antique mourning ring from Jason), and Mrs Bridges next door had given me an adorable hand-knitted toilet-roll cosy in the shape of a white poodle. It was the sort of thing Max absolutely loathed, a factor that just then endeared it to me all the more.

My four brothers (who have steadfastly kept in touch since my ejection from the family nest) had also communicated according to their different natures.

George and Philadelphia sent their annual pre-printed Christmas card, Francis a pair of skiing socks (though I could no more ski than I could fly), Jamie the harlot a box of chocolates with a card sending ‘lots of snuggles to Little Huggins’ (who was presumably now puzzling over why Jamie should be sending her brotherly greetings with
her
chocolates), and Eddie a battered parcel wrapped in handmade paper full of strange lumps, bumps and stalks, containing one of those stick crosses wrapped in coloured yarn which for some reason are called God’s Eyes.

I have never heard that God is at all into psychedelia, especially Pa’s God, and I bet Eddie sent one just like it home.

Jane’s offering was a coffret of bathtime goodies, though why they call them coffrets I don’t know, since it has very
ashy
connotations to me. Maybe it sounds posher than box?

The contents were all rose-scented, which suddenly and painfully reminded me of walking with Max down a path covered in velvet-soft pink petals, long ago. He’d said that he’d strewn roses before me, and what more could I ask?

But there, alas, was the basic difference between us: he’d seen rose petals, and I’d seen dismembered flowers.

As usual, I sent everyone a copy of my last book,
Grave Concerns,
for Christmas.

Happy Yuletide reading.

Chapter 2: Pregnant Pause

Even aficionados of the horror genre will be shocked, stunned and revolted by Cass Leigh’s latest offering on the altar of bad taste.…

The Times

Max did eventually send me a Christmas present (in January) of some expensive but noxious perfume. It smelt like it had been extruded from the nether regions of a musk rat, and probably had.

The musk rat was welcome to it, because I
never
wear perfume. Why doesn’t he know these things by now?

… from the unstoppered bottle rose a strange, evil, dark miasma that took form and shape and a greasy solidity before her eyes …

He is still calling me when the fancy takes him, though his conversation is more and more about golf, the excellence of Californian wine, and their new personal fitness trainer Kyra, than about how much he misses me.

Still, with no other man in the offing he remains in pole position.

Meanwhile in a fit of pique I bought my own late Christmas present of a Predictova fertility kit, although it took me a week or two to break open its pristine cellophane wrappings, especially after reading that book Orla gave me for Christmas:
Everything You Need To Know About Last-Minute Pregnancy.

Actually, I
didn’t
need to know most of that.

I am not sure how good an idea Predictova is either, because if I’m not ovulating at all I will be devastated, and if I am, I will be perfectly frantic in case each egg is the last one.

And it’s all very well for Orla to tell me to get a young lover, but you can’t just pick one up in the supermarket with the weekly shopping. Buy one, get one free? I don’t think so.

It’s a pity my handbag can’t turn into a dark, handsome and comfortably worn lover. I contemplated kissing it, but I think that only works with frogs, besides seeming a little weird.

Orla was quite right about all available men having major defects though, because when I actually came to look around, there were no possible baby-fatherers in the offing except Jason, whose progeny speaks for itself, mostly using the F-word.

We don’t know how Jason can carry on being so nice to Tom, unless he’s got the drop on him. After all, there
was
only one witness who saw Tanya driving off in the middle of the night after that row she had with Jason (who has a fearsome temper), and it’s been two years since then with no word.

Still, he did report her disappearance to the police and they looked into it, so they must have been satisfied.

Wonder where she went?

*   *   *

Have now paid several nocturnal visits to the church, especially on rainy nights. Dim lights burn all night, making it look pleasantly eerie, and I can settle in a little nest of tapestry cushions in my favourite pew next to the Templar’s Tomb.

The knight is wearing a pair of those knitted-looking chainmail tights with pointed wrinkly toes, which makes him look rather endearing. His wife lies next to him, looking serene: she was probably glad of the rest, going by the number of named offspring on the sides of the tomb.

I find the atmosphere conducive to thinking about the current novel, and contemplating Max and motherhood, but not, so far, to repentance.

When I told Charles this he said God was always happy to welcome me to his house whatever I thought about. He has such a cosy view of God, so unlike Pa’s that I only wish I could share his comforting vision; but even if I should undergo some miraculous conversion, I fear I will never be the type to cover myself with little fish brooches and dance about singing ‘Jesus Wants Me For A Sunbeam’.

Yesterday being stormy, I settled down (in the night, by the Knight) to do another of the pros and cons lists, although the first one didn’t really help: it showed me what I should and shouldn’t do, but then I ignored the information. Like horoscopes, really: you only take any notice of the bits you like the look of.

Having a baby in your forties:

For:

1) I want one.

2) I’m fit and healthy.

3) I’m financially solvent. (Just.)

4) I work from home. (Except for the singing telegrams.)

5) I want one.

6) I want one.

7) Max has gone to America for a year, making me question my conscience (and my fidelity.)

8) I don’t have time to wait.

9) I’m no longer one hundred per cent sure I want Max back anyway. Out of sight, out of thrall.

10) I want one.

Against:

1) Max doesn’t, and he
always
takes precautions.

2) Even if he agreed, according to that book Orla gave me I probably wouldn’t get pregnant now anyway, but if I did, would have a high risk of miscarriage, or something wrong with the baby, or medical risk to myself.

3) Max adamant unless we can marry, and Rosemary seems to be going from strength to strength.

4) If I had a baby by someone else, I’d lose Max and be completely on my own.

5) Don’t know any other possible man except Jason, and his offspring is no advert.

Conclusion:

I still want one.

Biologically it’s now (if I’m very lucky) or never. I’m still in working order, but for how much longer?

I ought to give Max an ultimatum, but this is not easy when we do not currently share the same continent, and not only might it be too late when he gets back, but I have always been putty in his hands.

I’m sure he’s too stubborn to change his mind, and I can’t wish for Rosemary to die (not that she shows any sign of doing so) because it would make me feel even guiltier than I already do.

So if I want to try for a baby I will have to find another father for it and forfeit Max for even, only after so many years with Max I am unversed in the art of finding another man.

Even Orla is finding it difficult, and she is not only terribly attractive but by no means picky.

At my age I’m sure it would take considerably more than a couple of one-night stands to achieve the desired result even if I fancied that idea, which I don’t; but equally I don’t want the biological father hanging about interfering with my life.

And speaking of fathers, if I have an illegitimate child Pa will not just ring me to tell me I will burn in hell, but consign me to become eternal spit-roast on Hell’s Rotisserie, basted at frequent intervals by Satan and all his little minions.

Clearly the cons outweigh the pros: but hell, logic has
nothing
to do with the issue of my Issue!

At this point the battery in my Maglite went out, which might or might not have been a sign from God? If so, it was unclear just what the message was.

Don’t think about it any more?

It now being too dim to write, and the sound of rain having ceased, I went out into the newly washed churchyard.

*   *   *

To celebrate the publication in February of my new novel
Nocturnally Yours,
I treated Orla and Jason to dinner at the village pub.