Size Matters (11 page)

Rory was being discharged from hospital early that afternoon. It would be a relief to get him safely home
and on his own again, away from that strange blonde girl who seemed to have grown roots by his bedside. He'd started to look a bit desperate. He'd only been in for a few days but there she was, this Tasha person, eternally sitting on the orange plastic chair by his bed, her legs crossed so high that he could hardly miss seeing right up to her knickers. The girl chewed gum with a ferocity that had made Greg say (fortunately only in the privacy of the glass bedroom) that he feared for any future boyfriends she might happen to fellate. She didn't appear to need to make any conversation with her prey either, but sat bouncing and bobbing in rhythmic silence beneath a set of headphones. Rory looked as if he had barely a clue who she was. Perhaps he hadn't. It was no good asking Ellie either. When asked, she'd just grunted, ‘That's Tasha,' and frowned (oh those embryonic wrinkles), discouraging any further questioning.

The state of the house wasn't improving Jay's mood. Even with Rory absent, the usual weekend tidal wave of free-roaming possessions found its way from rooms and cupboards and shelves. These items – books, coats, shoes, CDs, undealt-with mail, magazines and avoided homework – distributed themselves over every available surface and lay around like washed-up beach detritus, waiting for some reluctant inhabitant to be nagged into clearing up and putting it all somewhere else. The somewhere else too often turned out to be the bottom of the stairs, the bench in the hallway, the shelves in the sitting room (how did so many DVDs get themselves from shelf to floor? Did they jump down from their boxes in the night and take themselves for a spin on the rug?)

How did they do it, Jay wondered, these people whose homes appeared in magazines like
Elle Decoration
and
Living Etc.
? Did they have a skip outside the
front door crammed with things they didn't want the camera to see? All those photo-articles she gazed at so longingly, amazed and bemused that the immaculately tasteful Jeremys-and-Susannahs with their assorted under-six children (Polly, Dolly, Molly, Olly) existed without a single extraneous item or colour-uncoordinated Lego brick. There really were people out there, so she was led to believe, who successfully combined sticky infants and a moulting black Labrador with a shaggy cream rug and pale lavender suede curtains. She knew it was possible – some of the houses that Dishing the Dirt took care of looked as if no-one did any real living in them. Any children in such houses, she sometimes thought, must be kept in attic cages until they were old enough to heed the words ‘Don't Touch'.

These were people who didn't have fourteen half-used shampoo bottles on display in the bathroom (as did Rory and Ellie in the one they shared), whose baths had aromatherapy candles lined up seductively along the edge rather than a rusting selection of disposable razors, a paperback that had fallen in the water and a dented pink plastic duck of some weird sentimental value to Ellie. Where were these people's newspapers? Their junk mail? Their ironing pile? The children's luminous Barbie palace and lime green plastic pedal car? Why did their window ledges behind the kitchen sink always look so gleamingly bare, with possibly one carefully placed slender glass vase containing a single perfect lily?

If the No Clutter look was a sleek twenty-first-century wanna-have, Jay remembered that a certain order had been possible even in the country-pine kitchens of the early Nineties. Delphine's domain had been crammed from floor to loft with dinkiness and faux-rustic knick-knacks. Baskets of dried flowers had
topped every kitchen wall-cupboard. A row of floral-painted kettles had graced the kitchen window ledge. Eggs had nestled on the worktop in a frilled basket. An antique coffee grinder had stood to attention, shining and polished beside a stencilled mug tree. Jay didn't remember so much decorative paraphernalia ever looking a mess. There'd been a lot of stuff, but Delphine's house had never descended into the chaotic, lying-where-it-falls sort of state that her own house constantly veered towards. It was easy for her, Jay told herself. With only two adults trit-trotting neatly around the place, any fool could keep the domestic scenery in check. Throw in a few kids and all anarchy broke loose. Delphine hadn't taken that little factor into account the day when, watching Jay trying to get a casserole into her own (decidedly neglected) oven while spooning baby rice into six-month-old Imogen, she'd come out with a classic ‘Surely it's only a matter of a proper routine' comment.

Jay looked across towards her own sink, trying to see it with a fresh eye, pretending for a moment she was the woman from
House Doctor
advising on clearing out before potential buyers came to give it the once-over. A scrunched-up J-cloth hung over the slim arched neck of the tap like a drunk over a gate. On the ledge behind was half a bottle of Fairy Liquid, a squirty Mr Muscle, two tubes of hand cream, a two-year-old Mother's Day card, a pile of mail-order catalogues (Toast, Boden and something from the garden centre) and a row of six cling-filmed flower pots in which morning glory were supposed to be germinating but didn't seem to want to emerge. There were several bottles of fancy vinegar which should really be kept out of the light and a small jar of truffle oil which had been there for several years and was unlikely ever to be used. A pack of holiday photos waited for someone to claim it. Imogen
had left the bread out, yet again, along with the Flora and at least three knives. Not a decorative selection, all round. All these random items, she decided, except for the sulking morning glory, could be redistributed to various cupboards. The plants could be banished to Greg's office where they might be enticed to grow beneath the glass roof. Ellie could do all this (well you could ask, you could hope) while Jay was at the hospital collecting Rory.

‘I'm starving. When's lunch?' Ellie strolled into the kitchen still wearing her years-old, shrunken and faded Hallo Kitty pyjamas. Her wet hair was wrapped in a vast blue bath towel, making her look like a weird, wrongly proportioned cartoon figure. If Ellie had only got to the hair-wash stage by 11.30 a.m., it would surely be mid-afternoon before so much as a CD found its way to its rightful container – Moggie and Greg would have to be roped in for clearing-up duties as well.

‘I'm not doing lunch,' Jay told her, ‘I'm collecting Rory at two after the doctor's had a last look at him, then cooking roast lamb for us all at about six. Have a look in the fridge if you're hungry now, see what you can find.'

‘But . . . uh.' There was a sighed outburst of frustration as Ellie opened the fridge and gazed blankly at its contents. ‘Ooh there's a lemon tart,' she said, livening.

‘That's for tonight, Ells, don't touch that. Look, there's some sausages – you can have those if you want.'

‘Mm. That sounds good,' Greg said, folding the newspapers and (oh, there is a God) piling them into a neat heap ready for either the next reader or the recycling bin out by the front door. ‘Can you put a couple on for me as well, Ellie pet? And I'll do a few onions to go with them. I've a fancy for a hot-dog and I think there's
some rolls in the breadbin. Lots of ketchup, and that lurid American mustard,' he was now saying to himself, inspecting the jars and bottles on the fridge door shelves. Jay could feel her taste buds pricking dangerously. This weight-loss business was torture. She muttered an old slimming-club mantra: ‘A moment on the lips, a lifetime on the hips'. It didn't help: it just sounded arch and smug.

Ellie switched on the grill and loaded up the sausages (organic, leek and apple) while Greg chopped a big juicy onion, ready for slow-frying in a butter and olive oil mixture. The real will-power-killer was going to be the aroma – onions slowly caramelizing, the treacly ooze of the sausages . . .

‘Um – I'm just going next door to see Cathy. See what I can suggest about the sun and her yoga,' Jay said, and fled. By the time she got back they'd have finished eating, the kitchen would be filled with unappetizing dirty dishes and it would be time for her next Shape-Shake. Oh the joylessness of it, the tragic avoidance of mouth-watering anticipation. How much, she wondered, could a nice fast blast of liposuction hurt? Quite a lot, she imagined as she plodded down the front steps, quite a lot in both body and bank account.

None of the nurses were even halfway fit. And if he had been the type who was into women in uniform, Rory would have been disappointed. These wore shiny shapeless, pale blue overall things and looked like supermarket checkout staff. Whenever they touched you they put on thin Durexy gloves as if you were dodgy meat that was going off. There was only one with a bit of a foxy look to her (a slinky walk and pouty pale lipstick) and even she looked like her back end was made of concrete under that outfit. And hardly anyone from school had been in. Of his mates, only
Alex and Mart had bothered to turn up but they hadn't stayed long, just long enough to lob him a tatty-looking sympathy card which Ellie had said you only sent when people died (‘From the whole form' they told him, but it only had twelve names in it and two of those looked faked), before they sodded off to watch Arsenal coming to well-deserved grief on Mart's dad's massive widescreen Sky set-up.

There was no Sky TV in here and even if there was, he'd never get near it for all the elderlies glued to
Emmerdale
. There was no sign of Samantha Newton. He hadn't expected her to come in (but you could dream . . .) and her name wasn't on the card – it was the first thing he'd looked for. He pictured her now, doing Sunday things at home. She might be sitting on her bed, all newly showered and scented, painting her toenails sparkly pink. Her body would be naked under a not-quite-big-enough fluffy white towel with little beady drops of water still scattered across her shoulders. She'd probably got a couple of soft toys on her pillow – a squashy teddy and Garfield or a polar bear, maybe both. And she'd probably got a picture of that Timberlake tosser on her wall. Somebody older anyway, somebody with a gristle-hard body and too much attitude. He hated being sixteen – your head and your dick were going on twenty-two but to women you might as well still be seven.

Rory wished he was at home. He felt OK now, though he didn't want to go back to school yet, not while the stitches were still in. School was a hard place if you felt a bit vulnerable. Some wanker or other would think it so
amusing
to leap on your back in the corridor and hurl you to the floor just to see how much your wound could bleed. What he wanted was to be at home on one of the big pink sofas in the sitting room, with his feet up and the telly on and the smell of
Sunday-type cooking wafting in from the kitchen. He'd even like to see Ellie looking cross about something Not Being Fair.

Rory didn't really understand this Tasha girl who kept coming in and sitting with him. I mean, he thought, she was no minger but she was only a kid, in Ellie's year. Did she have a thing about hospitals? Did she want to be a doctor or something and was soaking up the atmosphere? Of all the things there were to soak up in here, atmosphere wasn't the one there was most of. He'd seen more stuff come out of people in the few days he'd been in than he'd thought any human body could possibly hold. That poor old bloke in the end bed – no wonder he'd died. Pulling the curtains round his bed hadn't really helped – he could still hear all the mopping and wiping and imagine all the tubes and stuff. Jesus. And when they'd trolleyed him away to the morgue the wheels had creaked and clanked like a ghost's chains. It was enough to give you nightmares, and he'd know where the blame would start if he spent his adult life in therapy dealing with an aversion to high white metal beds.

It wasn't long to go now. Dr Melissa would be round soon for a final check – she'd said some time after twelve thirty – and then his mum was coming and he could go home. A small childlike bit of him hoped she'd been in his room and given it a surprise makeover. Clean sheets and a start-again vacuumed floor had a hugely comforting appeal. Though any surprises were likely to be Jay's, he suddenly thought. I wonder, he mused, if she's ever read
Out for the Lads
before.

If Jay longed for a minimal look when it came to household furnishing, then it could be said that Cathy in the house next door opted for maximal, if such a word existed. Dishing the Dirt had clients like this –
premises which Jay and Barbara referred to as the heart-sink homes (that is, from a cleaner's point of view – their occupants tended to be jolly folks with happy lives as full and colourful as their houses), crammed from cellar to attic with ornaments and mementoes, every one of which had to be moved and dusted and washed and polished. Cathy's philosophy was that if you'd had a lovely time, whether it was a simple fun lunch with a friend or a full-scale holiday, then it was essential to bring back something to remind you of it. From the stuff stacked on each room's wall and surface – everything from an extensive plastic snow-dome collection to hundreds of pretty jugs, wooden carvings and postcards tucked onto every ledge – Jay would say she'd had a lifetime of daily outings filled with delight.

‘Come in, come in! Fancy a drink? A Sunday morning livener?' Cathy was pulling faded hyacinths from a pot at the top of the front steps. She was a welcoming soul with her hair tied back in a long black plait, and a smoker's off-white smile occupied a good half of her small bony face.

‘No thanks, I've got to drive later. Wouldn't mind some of that lovely tea you have though.' There was a spicy scent in the hallway, cinnamon, Jay guessed, something warming and Christmassy and probably grated into an apple pie.

‘Camomile?' Cathy suggested.

Jay shook her head, ‘Actually
not
camomile, thanks. Reminds me of my five-minute detox – don't ask!'

‘OK, you sad dieter. I've got a wonderful blackcurrant and elderflower mixture – come on through to the kitchen, but you'll have to excuse the mess.'