Slightly Foxed (37 page)
Authors: Jane Lovering
over-made-up mother were ushered out. Florrie and I looked
at one another, raised our eyebrows and entered. Sat on
plush chairs. Florrie and the woman behind the desk talked. I
fidgeted.
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At five to ten, I snapped. "Look, can I just sign the papers
please?" Florence and the woman stared at me. "You like
Florence, she likes you, you're obviously not recruiting for the
white-slave trade or child-labour market. Can I sign what I
have to and go?"
More staring, then the immaculate woman with her shiny
hair and taut face smiled. "I admire that," she said. I looked
down at myself in case she was talking about my skirt or bag.
"No, I really admire your forthrightness. It's refreshing. Most
parents are so obsequious, so, like, please take our daughter
on, have our house, we'll sell you our kids, just let our
daughter be a model."
"Can I sign then?"
Four minutes
.
Leaving an astonished Florence and an admiring agent, I
fled through the front doors into a taxi and snapped out my
address. It might work. Piers might have got held up in the
traffic. He might have been late getting back.
Why
was I so
desperate to see him this one last time?
We arrived at the flat and I propelled myself out onto the
kerb, hearing, as the taxi pulled away, the unmistakeable
sound of the Porsche's big growly engine changing down to
hit the main road at the other end of the street.
"Piers!" I screamed at the top of my voice, pointlessly I
knew, and set off at Olympic standard down the road. "Piers,
wait!" I reached the junction just in time to see the yellow car
make the tight turn at the lights and disappear off into the
thinning traffic under the walls, exhaust blarting and engine
shrieking. I could make out Piers, hair flung back by the wind,
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wraparound shades on as I panted to a stop outside the
newsagents.
There was absolutely nothing I could do. I limped back
indoors and stood at the window. Maybe I should phone him?
And say what? Sorry I missed you. Goodbye? If he'd picked
up my voicemail, he'd assume I didn't want to see him again
anyway. Wouldn't he? I mean, the message had been clear
enough if a little rambling, hadn't it?
Oh bugger it. Bugger everything. Bugger, bugger, bugger.
Surely it was just frustration which brought the tears to
my eyes. Only the irony of the situation which made me
snatch up Caspar from his comfortable position in front of the
food bowls. Merely anger at my own weakness which sent me
into the quietest room in the house to sit on the toilet seat,
weeping from somewhere deep inside my chest and hiding
my face in the soft kitten fur.
I felt ragged inside. As though some vital, elemental part
of myself had been dragged out through my chest and left me
with a gaping hole where something had been. The feeling
was familiar. The last night with Piers. I'd cried like this, then.
The same feeling of loss, when I'd told him that I couldn't see
him again, that we could never love like this again. Only that
time, he'd been there holding me. I could pretend that the
words meant nothing. Even as I said them he'd kissed them
away.
I'd lost him. Lost the feeling that he gave me, the feeling
that I could stretch up and touch the sky, grab great handfuls
of it. I wanted that feeling again. Not to be tied into a life
which was stable and safe, but to be free to have a life which
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was scary and edgy and risky and might just make me
happier than I'd known I could be. Who cared about the
mistakes of the past? That was then. This, very painfully, was
now.
Piers. It was real. What I thought I'd felt for him but not
dared to admit even to myself. Was real. Had been real.
I loved him.
I wiped my eyes on the cat again. Caspar squeaked once
in protest but seemed to sense that I needed something
warm to hold onto and butted his little nose into my face,
clinging to me with his claws. I welcomed the tiny painful
sharpnesses into my flesh. I deserved the pain. I'd sent away
the man who understood, who cared. Piers, whose presence
had finally filled that emptiness inside me which had been
there forever. And now I was realising all this—it was too late.
What had I always said to Florence? Make sure you find a
man who wants to be your friend first? And what had I done?
Found that very man, then let him get away. What the hell
had I been
thinking?
Ring Piers. I should have rung him. He'd probably have his
phone off now, on the road, then he'd be at the airport, then
he'd be in the air and then—a deep shudder inside. I could
barely get my head around the thought. He'd be gone for
good. And besides—the sound now piercing my self-created
isolation chamber—somebody was ringing
me
.
Should I answer?
"Hello." My voice sounded heavy, unlike me.
"Hey, Ally."
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"Piers!" The rush was incredible, sudden sweetness
pouring in, like a vein full of sugar. "I..."
"What happened? I came by. Assume you're not coming."
"Piers, I love you. I've been bloody stupid."
"Yeah, I know. Shit, woman, are you going to open this
door or not?"
"What?"
A deep sigh at the other end of the phone. "I'm standing
on the fucking doorstep now. You gonna open?"
I carried on talking as, dazed, I made my way to the door.
"I saw you leave, I missed you—ran after the car." Even after
I'd opened the door I carried on speaking into the phone,
watching him answering me with his own phone held to his
ear. "I thought you'd gone without me."
"Nearly did. But then I thought. That voicemail wasn't
exactly one hundred percent clear, y'know? Never believe
anyone telling me to fuck off until I can look in their eyes
while they say it."
"Do you know something?" I was just about whispering
into the receiver. "You are
such
a poser."
Carefully, gently, Piers reached out and pressed the button
to disconnect the call. "Yeah."
We missed the flight. And the next one. Piers eventually
got us booked on a flight which left from Heathrow and would
take us via New York ("Some real cool clothes in NY. Bought
this jacket there." "Really? I assumed you'd mugged a pimp.
Ow!") which gave me time to arrange that Jace—over the
sound of her smugness—would take the cats to live with her
for the meantime.
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And to attend Mrs. Treadgold's funeral.
As I cried, winding my fingers through Piers's at the
graveside, Mrs. Treadgold's words came back to me.
With
your true love, you feel that you don't have to hide.
And
through my tears came a quiet smile at her surety that Piers
and I had been a couple. The knowledge that the love that
she'd seen in my eyes had been for him, not as I'd thought
for Leo. That Mrs. Treadgold, Jacinta and even Piers had
known me better than I'd known myself. Because I'd been so
scared of repeating past mistakes.
"I'm not hiding any more," I whispered, dropping a small
wreath onto the surprisingly tiny coffin. In deference to Mrs.
Treadgold's obsession, the wreath had been worked into the
shape of a basket of kittens. "I think I'm found." Then I
looked at Piers, modestly dressed in a black leather jacket
and jeans, hair respectfully tied back and my heart began to
pound. "Or, at least, I'm completely lost in the right way."
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Postscript
A year later
I lay on a reclining chair, stretched out beneath the
Argentinian sun. Florence, visiting from Italy, lay beside me
and a small table between us held tall glasses of chilled
water. Ice cubes clinked, but apart from that the only sound
was the filter on the swimming pool humming gently to itself.
A shadow fell, cooling my skin. "Hey, Ally. How're you
doing?"
I struggled to sit up. "Piers, you're back!" Shading my eyes
against the sun, I could see him if I squinted, tall and sun-
tinted with fair highlights coming out in his hair. He leaned
over me and his lips brushed my rounded stomach.
"What, stay away from my girls for longer than I have to?
Nah." Then his voice lowered, words for me alone. "Can't be
away from you, Ally. Love kinda does that to you."
I laughed, rubbing a hand over the itchy, taut skin. "Yes,
and love does this to you as well. Come on, baby, give your
daddy a damn good kicking, show him how much you
appreciate him being away."
Our unborn daughter rolled lazily beneath my hand and
gave her father a leisurely boot. Florence opened her eyes
and regarded us from a prone position. "God, you're
disgusting, you two. Can't you keep your hands off each
other?"
I pointed at my six-month pregnancy. "Evidently not," and
Piers grinned.
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"You're just jealous, Florrie. Don't worry. Any day now the
boys will come knocking."
Florence gave her stepbrother the contemptuous look he
deserved and flopped back down onto her sunlounger,
adjusting her sunglasses for optimum coverage.
Piers perched alongside me, stretching his long legs out
and arching his face up towards the sun. Without looking he
reached out and grasped my hand, weaving his fingers
through mine. His touch pressed the ruby ring against my
palm and I glanced at it.
"What you grinning at, Ally?"
"Nothing." The smile took over my face, my voice. Even
the baby seemed to be absorbed in it. "Just life."
And suddenly everything seemed so simple.
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About the Author
In a now discredited experiment, Jane was raised as a
human being. She lives in the North of Britain with her semi-
nomadic family of singers, dancers and mathematicians, and
is believed to be the first person to need inoculations and a
visa to enter her own house.
She has a patient fiance, a love of books and sanity that is
no longer visible with the naked eye.
To learn more about Jane Lovering, please visit
www.JaneLovering.co.uk. It's largely bonkers, but the
pictures are lovely. Send an email to
[email protected] or join her Yahoo! group to get the
latest news on Jane's books, win stuff and chat with other
readers.
It's all happening at
groups.yahoo.com/group/janelovering.
There's also www.myspace.com/janelovering. But, you
know, save it until you're feeling strong.
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Look for these titles by Jane Lovering
Now Available:
Reversing Over Liberace
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Life, love and unlikely legacies.
Reversing Over Liberace
(C) 2007 Jane Lovering
Willow runs into Luke, the university lust-of-her-life, ten
years on and this time around he's interested—she's lost
twenty pounds and found fashion. But their meeting turns out
to be no accident. What is Luke
really
after, Willow or her new
inheritance?
Her best mate Cal is gorgeous and...well...
gay.
Then
reveals himself to be more than a mild, unassuming computer
geek and she is no longer sure exactly
who
is telling the truth
or who to trust.
Is anyone in her life what they seem to be?
Add to the romantic confusion, twelve pairs of rubber
boots, two elderly spaniels, a pregnant sister and the
unexpected contents of a matchbox and you get a funny,
touching story of a woman in search of revenge and getting
what she needs, rather than what she thinks she wants.
Enjoy the following excerpt for
Reversing Over Liberace:
"Luke?" Katie was waiting when I put the phone down, her
scandalometer clearly reading into the red. "What's
happened?"
"Nothing, nothing," I trilled. "Well, not exactly, we just had
a bit of a misunderstanding, that's all."
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"Oh, right, about him moving out of the hotel and stopping
at the showroom instead?"
"Ah, no. This was another misunderstanding. A different
one." Buoyed up and riding on the tide of goodwill that Luke's
admission had brought, I told Katie the full background to last
night's little, ahem, indiscretion on the lip frontage. When I'd
