Slightly Foxed (33 page)
Authors: Jane Lovering
stupid had I been? Why had I never asked?
"Well." I breathed in deeply. "Then I guess even more
congratulations are in order."
"You're not cross?" Florence put her head on one side. Her
white-blonde hair hung down over half her face. She suddenly
looked so like her father that my heart burrowed behind my
lungs and hid.
"No. Not really. I mean, I wish you'd told me, but, no. Why
should I be cross, really? My daughter, my incredibly
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intelligent
daughter has officially been recognised as
intelligent
and
beautiful."
Florence smiled at me. It was her father's smile too,
slightly crooked. I wondered if, should Florence become a
successful model, Flick would see her picture and realise who
she was. Come crawling out of the Polish woodwork with an
Arts Council award on one arm and a beautiful wife on the
other to claim his daughter. Then Alasdair would find out—oh
God, something
else
to worry about. I was at saturation
point. All it needed was a red telephone bill and I would
probably go raving insane.
"Thanks, Mum."
I gave her a grin which owed more to my jaw falling
beyond its lowest point than to humour. "Is your father happy
about all this?"
"He's being very supportive," Florence said, diplomatically.
"Piers has been great though."
"Piers
knew
?" An unwarranted vision of Piers the last time
we'd met, cool and damp with river water, my head on his
chest, tracing the pattern of hairs which ran down his lean,
flat stomach. Against my will my entire body juddered.
"Yeah, I told him when I got back. He thinks it's really
cool."
Duty done, Florrie bounded to her feet and sprang from
the room to get on with her packing. I lay back down on the
bed, not sure whether to be grateful that at least she wasn't
pregnant, or angry that, while her father, stepbrother and
best friend had all known what was going on, I'd been told at
the eleven-and-a-half-th hour. Why—I searched for a
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scapegoat—why hadn't
Piers
said something? Bastard. I
punched the pillow and it made me feel better, so I did it
again. Bastard.
Bastard!
Everything had been okay—punch—
until he'd appeared. Wading through that river like—punch—
like Mr. Darcy, all wet shirt and sex appeal. Had he no
consideration for my hormones? Punch.
I woke up in the middle of the night, disorientated. My
much-thumped Piers-substitute was clutched to my chest,
and I was tangled in the duvet, sweating in the heat of the
oppressive darkness and the sexually charged dream I'd been
having. I tried to turn over and go back to sleep, but the
dream had kicked my brain into action. It was reluctant to
relinquish this opportunity for a little undisturbed activity. My
life. The middle-class good-girl upbringing. Until. God, I still
blushed to think about it. Blushed all over my body, to
remember the arousal, the white-heat of desire that had risen
in me like steam from a boiling kettle the first time I'd set
eyes on Flick, during my first term at university. My first time
away from home. So many firsts. God, I'd adored him. I'd
thought it was all right if we were in love. It was all
right
.
Until it wasn't. Was suddenly real, and frightening and crying
in dark rooms. And the start of the lies.
I lay in the darkness with little pinpricks of light behind my
eyes swirling and joining like a dot-to-dot puzzle, a picture
becoming clearer by the second. I'd married Alasdair without
loving him, attempting to make everything right for my baby.
Being someone I wasn't? Was that what I'd tried to do with
Leo? Make my life normal, stable. Doing the right thing for
the wrong reasons? Then, what had I done with Piers?
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Shit. Three a.m. philosophy. Dangerous stuff.
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Jace's phone rang and rang. There wasn't even the usual
recorded message at the other end. "Where
is
she?" I
disconnected then redialled, in case by some fluke I'd called
the wrong number. "It's her day off."
Florence had her feet up over the back of the sofa and was
lying with her head on the floor, tickling Caspar. "Maybe she's
gone to the beach or something."
"She never goes anywhere. Except shopping, and I've
been ringing her every half hour since I got up, even
Jace
can't do
that
much shopping."
Florrie shrugged and clapped her bare feet together.
Grainger, at the far end of the sofa managing to keep one eye
on the kitten while he slept, flicked an ear.
"Go round." She flipped herself up the right way. "Her
phone might be buggered. Or she might have had an
accident." Ghoulish eyes rolled. "Be lying at the bottom of the
stairs calling for help."
I shuddered. "I don't think for one minute that's happened,
but I might pop into Webbe's for a bit." It would stop me
sitting here jumping every time I heard a car pull up outside.
"If she's not there, I'll go to her place."
"'Kay."
"Florence..." I had to phrase my words very carefully. A
hint of criticism could ruin the new mother/daughter
entente
cordiale
which we seemed to be enjoying, "...the whole
modelling thing. Why didn't you tell me?"
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She looked at me seriously and I found it hard to return
her gaze. Guilt, I suppose. "Well, to start with I didn't think it
would happen." Eyes dropped, she returned to teasing the
kitten. "I thought it would be stupid to get you all wound up
over something which could just have been me dreaming.
And you've always been so keen for me to get on in life, get
qualifications. Mum, I don't even know what I want to
do
yet.
I know that really it's only because of what happened to you,
and I'm grateful Mum, I really am, that you gave up school
and everything to have me, but—"
"But you're not me."
"Um. Yes. I think that's it, really. You're not mad—
angry
, I
mean? Truthfully?"
Angry? Me? That my bright, lovely daughter was going into
a profession which seemed designed to turn girls into coke-
sniffing clones of one another, burnt out by twenty and too
thin to stand?
"No. I'm a bit
hurt
that you told Piers before you told me
though. And your father," I added hastily. Didn't want her to
even suspect that I'd so much as
thought
about Piers in the
last twenty-four hours.
"Piers did tell me to tell you. Kind of threatened that he'd
do it if I didn't. But he told me to pick the right time and go
for it, not to lose my nerve and back out."
"Yes, picking his moment, that's Piers," I said without
thinking. Well, without thinking of anything but that moment
he'd picked, under the tree, that kiss, with our hair tangling
together in the breeze. God, Alys, stop it.
"Er, yes."
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We stood silently for a moment. Caspar rubbed his newly
darkening ears against my leg and Grainger wrapped a paw
over his own eyes to block out the sight.
"I just want you to be happy," I whispered.
"Aww,
Mum
. Don't get soppy! I am happy. I always do
what makes me happy, don't I? And I want
you
to be happy
too. Leo seems like a really nice guy, not the kind to sleep his
way through your friends or beat you up after a few drinks.
You'll make a cool couple."
"I think I need to talk to you about that." I grabbed my
bag and headed out to catch the bus to the bookshop. "But
it'll have to be later."
Standing at the bus stop, I heard a car come growling
past, throaty exhaust rumbling just like the Porsche. Stop it.
Now that I'd managed to admit to myself that Leo had been
symptomatic of my urge to force my life along unnatural
lines, Piers hung heavy in my mind. God, he was gorgeous,
fabulous in bed and he said he loved me, but... Hadn't I been
here before? Letting one man go and simply moving on to the
next?
I wished Mrs. Treadgold was here. This sort of emotional
angst would have been right up her alley. I could almost hear
her top set clattering with advice.
Webbe's was open. I pushed the door to the tinny clacking
of the disabled bell and found Simon himself manning the till,
selling a cache of Asimovs to a young man with a guitar
strapped on his back.
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"Alys." Simon jumped, dropping the young man's change
all over the counter. "I thought you were in Devon for the
next few days."
"Change of plan. I didn't know you could work the till."
"Sarcasm, Alys." Simon tutted and shook his head. "So,
what brings you in here on such a beautiful day?"
"Looking for Jace. Do you know where she is?"
A rather furtive expression crossed Simon's well-formed
features. It looked as alien on him as a nylon suit.
I sat down heavily on the stool. "
What
is going on? Am I
phasing in and out of existence, or is there some conspiracy
deliberately not to tell me things?"
Simon stared at me. The secretive expression was leaving,
to be replaced by something which, if he hadn't been so
impeccably well brought up, I would have said was shame.
"Well...er...I...Jacinta and I...we..."
Behind me the door rattled. I glanced towards it and my
heart did a peculiar thing. It felt as though it tried to do the
drop of dread, but was counteracted by a desire to become
rather unnecessarily floaty and ended up by beating faster.
"Great. Hello, Piers. Come and join my set of People Who Like
to Keep Things from Me. I've nearly got enough to trade up to
Total Paranoia."
"We need to talk."
"As a general premise, yes, we do need to talk. As a
specific—too late, Piers. Just too bloody
late
." I collapsed my
head into my hands.
I felt an arm come round my shoulders and tried to shrug
it off, assuming it was Piers, but it was Simon. "Alys, why
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don't you go home? You've been under a lot of stress lately. I
think I can allow you some compassionate leave."
"Where's Jace?" I raised my head.
"Alys."
Piers again. I glanced up and our eyes met over the top of
Simon's head. Piers looked rough, which was unusual. He
normally cultivated the appearance of a man who hasn't had
time to shave and has been too busy debauching to brush his
hair, but managed it whilst looking otherwise impeccable. But
now he looked like a man who's been up all night and, if he's
slept at all, has done it in the clothes he's currently walking
around in.
To Simon's intensely visible relief a customer presented
through the door, followed by a family of confused Japanese
tourists. Piers and I found ourselves standing outside the
door. I felt as though my head had been taken off, rotated
three hundred and sixty degrees, and then replaced.
"Where's Jace?" I asked him.
"How the fuck would I know? Look, I don't know anything
anymore. I'm, like, kinda drifting here. I can't sleep, can't
eat. I need to see you."
"Ta da."
"No." Piers caught me by the elbow and propelled me
backwards into the alleyway which ran between two buildings
and around the back of Webbe's. The street noises died and
were replaced by the smell of dustbins and the sound of a
lone toilet flushing. "What I said, yesterday. It wasn't a cheap
line just to get to you. I love you. Meant it then, mean it
now."
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"You took advantage of me, Piers. You gave me bad news
and then hit me with—with all that stuff."
"I happen to know that Mrs. T would have approved of 'all
that stuff' as you put it. And we're not talking about that shit,
Alys, we're talking about
us
. About you and me."
He'd got me cornered where two walls met, my back
against brickwork and a cheap plastic bin preventing any kind
of sideways escape. "Piers—"
"I
know
you, Alys. All the crap, all the shit and I
still
love
you. I've been waiting so long. You're thinking this is all to
get a fuck, but remember that night? The party? I carried you
to the taxi, took you home. I never touched you. I could have
done it there, then, on the bed. You were out of it, you
wouldn't have known.
But I didn't
. I stayed with you, Alys,
