Slightly Foxed (11 page)

peevish." Also depressed at the awfulness of my flat. Even if

Leo did seem to run his own home in a cross between junkie-

chic and Oxfam, it was still furnished in the eccentric way of

someone who could buy better, but wasn't bothered. My place

was furnished but only just. I couldn't afford a lifestyle. I

couldn't even afford lifestyle magazines.

"I go make tea. I must adjust my makeup." Jace shimmied

off towards the cubbyhole, leaving me making faces at myself

in the shiny surface of the desk.

There was a pile of literary magazines propped up to

display their artfully designed covers next to the till and I

glanced over them. "
Slightly Foxed
. That's me to a tee that is.

More than
slightly,
more like bloody
completely
foxed.

Probably hedgehogged as well. Wouldn't be surprised." I

pulled another series of huffy faces. When the bell clattered, I

hardly even bothered to look up.

"Wind'll change y'know."

90

Slightly Foxed

by Jane Lovering

I glanced in the direction of the doorway. It was the

postman, bearing our usual bundle of mail and a large

wrapped parcel.

"That looks exciting," I said, in an ironic way.

"Now, now. It's not for you anyway. It's for Jacinta. She

about?"

Curiosity overcame me. "No, sorry, she's"—I lowered my

voice, although I knew Jace couldn't hear anything behind the

curtain—"gone home. Women's troubles, you know."

"'Nuff said." He handed me the wedge of brown and buff

envelopes in one hand, and I signed for the parcel with the

other.

I waited until he'd stepped back into the street before I

gave the package a good scrutinising. Okay, it was wrong of

me but, well. I spilled the beans to Jace about every detail of

my
life whilst she didn't seem to see anything wrong in

keeping secrets from me.

The parcel was soft. Squashy. I turned it every which way,

but there was no clue to the contents. It was addressed by

hand in bold biro and covered in what looked like enough

stamps to mail an elephant. I shook it and was just about to

"accidentally" tear one corner when Jace emerged, newly

made-up.

"This is for you."

Her eyes went round and she let out a little squeal. "Oh,

this is very
very
good. In time for my weekend too!"

I waited expectantly for her to tear off the wrapping.

Instead she shoved the whole thing into her capacious bag. I

opened my mouth to ask but closed it again. If she'd wanted

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me to know she'd have told me, wouldn't she? I huffed off

into the darkest reaches of Biography where I sat on Stephen

Fry. Jace obviously thought this all stemmed from my

morning whinge and left me to get on with it. Although, to

her credit, occasional emergency cups of tea were left at the

entrance next to consolatory piles of biscuits for the rest of

the day, as if she were feeding the Minotaur in its lair.

I began cleaning and tidying the flat. At least with Florence

away, areas that I tidied stayed more or less that way. The

bathroom I couldn't do much about. Cracked tiles and damp

walls were still very much in evidence. I went shopping and

laid in supplies from the discounted shelves where they sold

those items nearly out of date, what Florence always referred

to as the "botulism counter". Dips and mousses, finger foods

which would taste their best eaten in bed. Oh dreadful

thought, perhaps he wouldn't want to come back here at all.

But, that kiss—that had promised such a lot.

I bought a new duvet set for the bed, crisp Egyptian cotton

in classy off-white. Calm tranquillity in my bed was not quite

what I was aiming for though. How did I conjure up torrid sex

with a tiny hint of long-lasting passion? Unfortunately the

years of single parenthood had given me such a complex

about spending money on myself that I was almost overcome

with guilt at the whole expense. I had to bite my fingers to

prevent myself from taking the bed set back to the shop. In

the end I bought (in the charity shop, to assuage my mother-

guilt) a throw in glowing red velvet and made some scatter

cushions from some old curtains, although my sewing

technique was not the best and the stitches were so large

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that the cushions looked like accident victims. With the hint-

of-yellow walls and light blue woodwork, the pine dressing

table and bedhead, the throw made the bed stand out

throbbingly, like a boil on a suntanned bum. It was, to put it

mildly,
obvious
.

Ah well
, I thought, standing back to admire my efforts,

better obvious than diffident
. I mean, look at Simon. I bet he

hadn't had sex since 1989. With anyone. Of either gender. I

bet
his
bedroom was wall-to-wall beige and he could only find

the bed by running his hands over the carpet.

Urgh. I shook myself out of this unhealthy preoccupation

with my boss's sleeping arrangements. (Maybe he didn't have

a bed at all. Maybe he rolled himself in sacking and lay on a

stone floor. He looked the type.)

"You come to my home on Tuesday," Jacinta advised on

Monday. "Before you go to the station, I will make you up."

Which certainly made sense since Jace lived midway

between Webbe's and the station. So after work on Tuesday

the two of us made our rather giggly way to Jace's tiny

house. It was a one-bedroomed terrace, so tall and thin that

on first seeing Jacinta at home, I'd assumed that she could

only turn round by going outside. Jacinta opened a bottle of

wine. "How many birthday cards are you getting today?" she

asked while I struggled into the green dress.

"Um. Well. Simon's never remembered my birthday,

Florence has already given me my card, the book group gave

me a joint card yesterday, so did Piers, oddly enough. So—

one."

"One? And what about the card I am giving you?"

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"That was the one."

"Ah, Alys." Jace sighed and drained her glass in one

mouthful. "You need a good man."

"Perhaps today I'll actually go about getting one." Another

spark of anticipation fizzed inside me and I gave a beaming

smile.

"Well." She looked me over appreciatively and smoothed

some wrinkles out of the dress as she did so. "You are

certainly going to grab some eyes. You are lovely woman,

Alys. Lovely." Jacinta gave a small sniff and wiped her eyes

with the back of her hand. "Now, are we going to make you a

face?"

By the time the wine was finished, we had indeed made

me a face. I barely recognised myself in the mirror. "Good

God," I said, impressed. She had been spending so long over

applying my makeup that I had begun to wonder if I would

emerge looking like a drag queen. But, in the best traditions

of makeup artists everywhere, Jace had made me look as

though I were wearing none at all. "I look—pretty."

"Stand up and go around," she ordered and I obliged,

feeling the green skirt flare away from my thighs as I twirled.

My hair, which Jace had pinned into a casually tumbled style,

flowed around my face. I was impressed. My hair normally

made me look somewhere between an auburn poodle and a

seventies footballer, but right now it was coming in just to the

left of Nicole Kidman. "Beautiful." Jace quickly sliced away

another tear. "You look so certain of yourself."

"Right now," I said, pouting at myself in the mirror, "I

could proposition Johnny Depp."

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"Then let us hope he is not at the station. You would not

be wishing for punching and fighting."

I felt out of place standing on York station at seven thirty.

Around me milled a crowd of returning commuters, all

wearing workaday suits and office-dishevelled hair, whilst I

stood like a misplaced ageing ingenue, overglamorous and

hyped to distraction. I watched the Arrivals board, the seven

forty-five which Leo would be on was running ten minutes

late, so I bought myself a coffee. I had to ditch most of it on

account of my bladder being overwrought with nerves. In the

Ladies, I sprayed on more perfume, then worried I would

smell too pungent.

As I crouched at the sink trying to wash off the worst of

the excess, the creeping self-doubt began. Was I cut out to

be a girlfriend anyway? Shouldn't I be at home, baking cakes

for my daughter, whilst she crayoned in the next room? All

right, maybe sixteen was bit old for crayoning—perhaps I

could bake while she revised, calling out the odd question

about the causes of the First World War, or the structure of

the ear?

I fished a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and

dabbed at myself where the water had splashed over my

dress, and thought of Florence's reaction the only time I'd

tried to help her with her homework. She'd fixed me with a

baleful glance from an overmascaraed eye, corrected my

Latin pronunciation and told me she was going round to a

friend's house to revise. Where it was quieter, apparently.

By the time I emerged, the Exeter train was being

announced on Platform Three. I placed myself casually, but

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with my heart thundering, against a pillar. It would give me

maximum time to make an impact particularly if he thought I

wasn't there.

In the event, it was he who wasn't there. I watched every

passenger from the seven forty-five off the train, and every

passenger from the eight twenty-nine, and from the nine oh-

six. Leo was none of them. By twenty past nine I was so

blasted with misery that I got a taxi home and as soon as the

front door enclosed me into the safety of my flat, I started to

weep.

When the phone rang I wanted to ignore it. But eventually

maternal instinct took over. What if it was Florrie? It was Leo.

"Alys! Thank God you're there at last."

"Mmmm. I am," I said, somewhat coolly.

"Only I've been trying to get you since ten o'clock this

morning. I'm so, so sorry I couldn't make it. Believe me, I

would have if I could, but I've had a mare go into premature

labour here. The vet's just left, poor old girl's absolutely

exhausted. I really cannot apologise enough, Alys."

"I'm sorry you couldn't come too." I tried not to sound

forlorn. "But I know how animals are. Unpredictable."

"Yeah, so, look. Um. I know this might be difficult for you

and everything." To his credit he really did sound quite

distraught. "Happy birthday by the way. There's an all-day

screening of
The
Lord of the Rings
trilogy at the Odeon in

Exeter on Friday and I wondered—if you could get here and

everything—if you'd like to go. With me, obviously. We could

have dinner afterwards and..."

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Oh, please Leo, don't bother with the "and". My

imagination was already working on
that
.

"I'd love to," I said, now enormously cheered. He hadn't

rejected me. We parted telephonic company after an

exchange of pleasantries and normal small talk, and I put his

picture back up on the bedroom wall; it was only slightly

creased from where I'd jumped on his face.

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97

Slightly Foxed

by Jane Lovering

When I walked into Webbe's next morning, Simon was

pricing up some new books and placing them on a stand.

"Good morning." He put down his pencil and looked at me

critically. "And how are you feeling today?"

For one horrible second I thought he was making some

kind of ironic reference to his having overworked Jace and I

chronically over the last few days. Then she appeared over

his left shoulder and started making boggle-eye faces at me.

"Oh, I'm fine."

"Only Jacinta said that you might not be in today. Says

that you were feeling really rough yesterday."

"I..." I hesitated, uncertain as to the nature of my

supposed complaint, until I saw Jace making hand cupped to

mouth and heaving gestures. "It was something I ate. Much

better now. Up all night though. Terrible. And once I stopped

being sick, it started coming out the other end," I added

smoothly so as not to waste his sympathy just in case I felt

like sloping off work early.

Simon's face registered a mixture of concern and

repulsion. He began to back away. "Well, if you feel at all—

you know—today, you get off home." Jacinta was making

obscene gestures and rolling her eyes towards the door, and

it dawned on me what this was all about. She thought I'd

have such a sex-soaked night I'd be unable to get in to work.