Slightly Foxed (29 page)

Then you can introduce him to Grainger properly." Piers

almost shoved Florence out of the door then spun on his heel,

collecting another custard cream as he did so. "So, Alys?"

"What on earth possessed you? A hundred pounds? For

that little scrap?" I tried to ignore the fact that he looked

damn near as appealing as the kitten. "What if I move to

Devon?"

He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Take it. Call

it recompense for screwing up your life."

"But you haven't."

"Telling you about Ma and Alasdair doesn't count?" He

lowered his voice. "And you spilling it all to me—tell me that

doesn't count as screwing up your life."

I lowered my voice too, although Florence could be heard

at a great distance, outside, encouraging the kitten to

appreciate the joys of nature in an unnaturally high-pitched

voice. "I chose to tell you though. It wasn't your fault."

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"Does
he
know? This Leo guy? Does he know about

Florence? About all the crap? What you've been through?" I

couldn't speak. Shook my head. As gentle as he'd been with

the kitten, Piers brushed my hair away from my face and

looked into my eyes. "Then I think it kinda counts," he said

softly.

"Piers." I stepped away. "Don't be nice to me, I think I

might cry."

He smiled. "Just saved one life already tonight, I'm up for

another. Bring it on."

To my shame, just for a second, the urge to feel the

pressure of his embrace almost overwhelmed me, but I

swallowed firmly and the feelings died back. "Thanks, but no.

The kitten, I mean, he's lovely and everything—"

Grainger circled back towards us and sniffed the toe of

Piers's boot with evident interest. "Just doing what I thought

was right, Ally. That's all." Unconcerned now, Piers was

munching another biscuit.

"But I can't look after—I mean I'll have to get a litter tray,

and special kitten food and—oh bugger, you're going to tell

me you've already got them, aren't you?"

"In the hallway." Piers gestured with the edge of the

biscuit. "Just call me Mr. Prepared."

Florence re-entered, chirruping and peeping like a massed

rank of bats, the kitten perched high on her shoulder, blinking

enigmatically. As soon as he saw me, he trod gently down her

arm and took a tiny, wobbly leap to land squarely in the

middle of my chest with his tiny pin-claws grasping me

securely. His miniscule chest throbbed with purrs.

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"Isn't love wonderful?" Piers said dryly.

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Grainger gave Caspar a thorough inspection, sniffed him

all over including the insides of his ears and sat down to wash

his own face whilst watching the kitten out of the corner of

his eye with a slightly desperate expression.

"I think Grainger knows the kitten was designed to be a

replacement." I ripped into pizza, letting greasy gobbets of

cheese ripple down my hand. "He's probably taking it as a

portent of his demise, like a kind of cat-banshee. So, are you

going out tonight to celebrate your success?"

"Yeah, well. Some of the girls said we might meet up

somewhere in town, go round a bit. You know." Florrie

avoided looking at me.

"Not drinking, I hope? You're still only sixteen, all of you. I

know how much trouble it's possible to get into when you've

been drinking. You do things. Things you wouldn't even

consider if you were sober."

"Oh, don't worry so much, Mum. I'm not going to get

pregnant or anything. I'm not
that
stupid!"

"Thank you."

"I didn't mean that." She seemed to consider stomping out

of the room for a moment but relented. "Sorry." Florence had

definitely improved beyond measure since she'd come back

from London, a few months ago she wouldn't have thought

twice about dropping an insult like that, and certainly she

wouldn't have apologised. "But, Mum,
were
you drunk when

you got pregnant with me?"

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Past and present, fact and fiction merged there in my mind

for a moment. "Your father and I had really only just started

going out when I found out, so I can't be sure."

"You could have had an abortion?"

Being in London had certainly given Florrie a well-rounded

view of things. She'd never asked
that
question before. "I

didn't want to."

Not wholly true. But I'd thought maybe a baby would be

what Flick needed to calm him down. Restrict his wildness a

bit. And after I'd found out that curbing his excesses was the

last
thing he had in mind, I'd simply left it too late.

"But why not? You gave up everything, your education. All

of it, just to have me."

"I wanted to have you. Your father was, I thought, the

love of my life."

Her real father. Flick. Gorgeous bastard that he'd been.

"Where did Piers go?" Florrie was obviously bored with the

subject.

"Out to get another pizza, I think."

"Bugger. I was going to ask him to pick me up from town

later. Oh well. I'm off to get ready."

Florrie danced out, leaving me with the remnants of our

celebratory pizzas and two animals both trying to pretend

they were the only cat in the world. I absent-mindedly gave

the ring another tug of desperation, this time it slid

effortlessly off, lubricated with the sweat of greasy cheese

from the pizza. It was about the only thing I hadn't already

tried.

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As it came off I was overwhelmed with relief, and felt

instantly guilty, but not quite guilty enough to put it back on.

I laid the ring down on the carpet and looked at it. It had

reassumed its air of innocence, no longer weighing on my

finger and my mind so heavily. But still. Leo wanted me.

As though he sensed my doubts, Grainger got up and

poked me affectionately in the eye with his nose. Then he and

Caspar wobbled around each other for a moment before they

both sat back down. Honour had evidently been satisfied.

I went to pick the ring up and put it on the table, but it

wasn't there. I swivelled around where I'd sat on the floor

beside the sofa and peered underneath, into the fluff-

encrusted depths. Nothing. With increasing desperation, I

crawled around on all fours slapping at the mat like a

deranged carpet-fitter, but there was not so much as a glint

of sapphire, a hint of diamonds.

"Mum? What
are
you doing?"

"You don't think we could have a poltergeist, do you?" I

patted on. "My ring's completely vanished."

Florrie had emerged from her room, wearing a kind of

throw-over dress which looked as though her aim hadn't been

particularly good. "Even a poltergeist would have better taste

than to hang round here. It's probably rolled under the sofa."

"Can you give me a hand to lift it up?"

Florence looked down at herself. "In
this
? Joking, right?"

There was a bang at the front door and Piers made another of

his decorative entries. Florence positively leaped at him. "Can

you pick me up tonight, 'bout elevenish? I'll ring when I'm

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ready? Pretty please? Oh, and Mum needs a hand with the

sofa."

"Jeez, Flo, ever heard of buses? Yeah, okay. Enjoy."

We watched her leave, then Piers turned to me. "Hand

with the sofa?"

"To lift it up."

I paused briefly to appreciate his muscles being brought

into play, but there was no ring under the sofa. Caspar used

the opportunity to dive underneath and chase fluffballs.

Grainger was curled on the carpet looking pathetic.

"Do you think he's really better?" I asked. "Maybe it was

more than a stroke. Only he looks so thin and scraggy...

Maybe he's got a tapeworm."

"Hey, thin and scraggy never did me any harm." Piers

raked his hair, stretching out his back, and I fought my

eyeballs for control. "Anyway, what
is
tapeworm? Sounds

kinda cute."

"Cute? Yuk. What did you take to bed when you were little,

a liver fluke?"

"Nah. Weren't allowed toys. I was a weekly boarder. Little

school near Boston."

"You hated it that much?"

"It shows, huh?" Piers gathered Caspar up and hauled him

onto his lap, his velvet trousers gathered gobbets of pale fur,

but he didn't seem to care. "Moving to England was the best

thing Ma ever did, far as I was concerned. Okay, I had to go

to a prissy school where they made us wear hats, but, hey, I

got to go home nights. How 'bout you?"

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"Day school. Private though, Dad insisted. He was only

something fairly minor in local government, but he and Mum

found the money from somewhere. And I had music lessons

and dance and tennis coaching."

"You hated it that much?"

"It shows?" I gave him a rueful smile and began stroking

Grainger's slightly dull fur. "Dear old Dad had it dead set in

his mind that I was going to be something successful. Kind of

a good job that they died before I proved them wrong, wasn't

it?"

There was a moment of silence. Piers gave my arm a quick

rub of sympathy. "Hey, you got Flo, and she's not so bad, is

she?"

"I suppose."

"What did
you
want to be?"

"Me?"

"Yeah. When you were a kid?"

I looked at him. "Promise you won't laugh?"

"Hey, you're looking at the guy who wanted to be the first

Olympic gold medallist for the Down Stairs Tea Tray slalom.

I'm in no
position
to laugh!"

"I wanted—
really
?"

"What can I say? I was a cute kid. Now, you?"

"I wanted to be a writer. Children's books, preferably.

Stories about elves and magic and I
knew
you'd laugh."

"I'm not laughing. Trust me. I think it's real sad that you

haven't got to do that yet. But you will, one day."

"Yes, one day. Maybe." I sighed. "I don't exactly come

across as a dynamic go-getter, do I?"

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Piers had an odd look on his face, a kind of inward-seeing

expression. "Life's tough, yeah? Have to adjust to not always

getting what we want." He came and sat down beside me on

the sofa, and leaned over to stroke Grainger, who took this

dual approach to cat petting as no more than his proper

entitlement. He wasn't going to let us off the hook for sending

him into exile any time soon.

"You're well adjusted though, aren't you?"

"On the surface. But inside I'm a mass of torment." He

clasped his hands dramatically to his chest and flung his head

back. Unfortunately he had misjudged the distance between

the sofa and the wall and cracked his skull, giving me the

chance to appreciate truly bilingual swearing. Grainger

stirred, obviously annoyed.

"D'you reckon he's got it?" Piers eyed the tabby

suspiciously, one hand held to the back of his head as though

he feared it might come off.

"I'm beginning to. But I daren't pick him up. I've got work

in the morning. I don't want to go in looking like something a

practising taxidermist has had a go at. Besides, he feels

really—"

"Sticky? Mangy?"

"I was going to say fragile."

"Okay." Piers dived on Grainger and lifted him suddenly off

the floor. Finding himself with paws dangling Grainger froze

for a moment then hung limply like an unconvincing handbag.

Exactly where Grainger had been, sat my ring.

"The little bastard." I picked up the ring and resisted any

urge to give it a place of safety on my finger again.

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"He's got a right to comment, I guess." We stood side by

side and looked at the ring twinkling away on my palm. "What

are you going to do, Alys? Say yeah to the guy? Or kick free?"

"He says he loves me, Piers. It would give me something

beyond this place and work. I mean, I'll miss Jace, and Simon

and God help me, I'll even miss
you
. But really why am I

staying here?"

Piers looked as though he was about to speak, running

both hands through his hair and dropping his gaze from mine.

When he brought his fingers forward there was blood on his

hand and a bit more multicultural profanity was brought into

play.

"Hang on I'll get some Savlon to put on it."

Piers sat heavily next to where Grainger was now coiled,

one lip curled in disgust at his recent treatment. "So? What

are
you going to do?" Piers called after me as I went into the

kitchen in search of my first aid kit, consisting of a tube of