Sugar Mummy (47 page)

I set off to walk back to Marion's. Some children are coming
out of a junior school in the next street. A little girl is walking along in a very
busy, grown-up manner while holding her boater on with one hand and struggling to
carry a painting in the other. White socks pulled right up and children's sandals
- heavy and comfortable. It's a painting of a big red boat on a thickly painted
wavy blue sea. The sky, hanging above, is also blue and thick and wavy. I smile
at such solid childish certainties. 'Then we had music and movement with Mrs Jackson
and then we had sausages for lunch and, Mummy, Emma didn't eat all hers ...' she
is saying.

She looks up at me, sees me smiling and smiles back. Looking
away, I catch her mother's eye - cold and suspicious.

I get home and ring my old Fulham flat just in case Vinny happens
to be home. I'm glad to hear that my voice is still on the answer machine. I don't
leave a message.

Then I find a piece of writing paper and begin to write to Jane
care of Vinny. I don't mention the wedding, of course. But even though I try various
versions nothing sounds right. When I look again at what I've written for a fifth
time I notice Marion's address at the head of the paper.

Chapter
Twenty-Three

Marion is sitting in the living room on the phone with a towel
on her head. A woman with red hair in a messy bun and 'Miami Beach' sweat top is
painting her toenails while Marion watches intensely. The woman looks up at me and
says 'Hello' in a slightly uncertain way.

I nearly rang Jane on the way back but I chickened out. I'll
ring her when I've got this crap out of the way. I did ring my mum and dad. Thank
God I got the answer phone. I left a message saying that I had moved into a new
flat and that it didn't have a phone yet but as soon as it did I'd give them the
number.

'Where have you been all afternoon?' asks Marion, still staring
at the woman working on her feet.

'Oh, I just went for a walk,' I say, dropping down on the settee
and putting my hands behind my head.

'Where did you go?' Marion is obviously mystified why anyone
would want to do such a thing since it doesn't involve people or money or expensive
things.

'Just round Chelsea,' I say.

'You sure that's Mustique, Dawn? It looks much darker on the
colour chart.'

The pedicurist looks up in terror at Marion, mumbles something
and then shows her the bottle. Marion squints at it for a moment. 'Doesn't this
look too dark? You can hardly see my tan,' she says.

I open my mouth but realise that I can't be bothered to answer
so I shut it again.

'Mmm.' Marion considers it for a moment. 'It'll have to do. It's
just because I'm wearing sandals at Marsha's thing tonight. Come round tomorrow
morning and take it off, though, will you?' Assuming she is talking to the pedicurist
and she hasn't found some new task for me, I channel surf for a moment - a woman
wearing a sweatsuit, standing in a huge American kitchen is tearfully telling a
nan she is going to get her daughter back whatever it takes, then there's a woman
cutting up a kiwi fruit and telling us how easy something is, a woman sitting on
a settee asking another woman how she felt when she heard the news. Marion is talking
to me again.

'Sorry?'

'I said you'd better start getting ready.'

'What for?'

'For Marsha's.'

'What time does it start?'

'About eight.'

'It's only quarter to five,' I say.

'Well, we don't want to be late.'

'How is it going to take me three hours to get ready?'

There is a pause as Marion stares at the woman whose hands are
now visibly shaking. Then she says, 'Once you get in that bath.'

'What?'

'Well, maybe you should go and rest up a little. You know how
wine goes to your head when you're tired,' says Marion. 'I don't want you embarrassing
me again.'

'Again?'

Marion says nothing. I look at her for a moment but she is concentrating
again on the pedicurist who is literally keeping her head down. I get up and walk
to the door.

'Where're you going?' says Marion. I don't answer, partly because
I can't be bothered and partly because I don't know. I really don't know.

I walk around Eaton Square and up to Sloane Square where lines
of traffic are gradually moving around the traffic islands and disappearing down
the King's Road and Sloane Street like a knot slowly being pulled undone. The light
is low and yellowy and autumnal. It feels like the end of the summer holidays.

I decide to sit at a cafe in the square and have a cappuccino.
After half an hour of idle origami with an empty sugar sachet I order another one.

By now I feel tired and sticky and want to have a bath. Marion
is actually right - I could spend a couple of hours in there. I catch the waitress's
eye and do some air writing. She smiles and moments later brings me a saucer with
the bill. It is £6.40. For two cappuccinos? Bloody hell! Ridiculous! God, I sound
like my dad. I reach into my trouser pocket and know immediately that I haven't
got enough. I find a fiver, a twenty pence piece and a penny. Fuck! The taxi fare
plus a couple of magazines and a bag of Maltesers have used most of the twenty Marion
gave me.

I look round and immediately the waitress, a French girl with
long black hair in bunches and thick black eye make-up, is at the table.

'Hi, look, sorry, I'm a bit short of cash. I'll just dash across
the road to the cashpoint shall I?' The girl looks and smiles and I realise that
she hasn't understood a word I've said. I take my card out of my wallet and start
thrusting it into the air.

She laughs and says, 'Oh, OK.' I laugh too and get up to leave.
On the way out I walk into the manager who has been watching us.

'Can I help you?' he says, obviously meaning the opposite. 'Yeah,
I'm a bit short of cash so I'm just going across the road to get some more. Won't
be a minute.' He nods sullenly and turns away. By the time I get to the cashpoint
a queue has mysteriously formed and I get stuck behind some daft old biddy in an
anorak who, when she is asked whether she wants a receipt, tries to calculate to
the nearest tree the effect it will have on the world's non-sustainable forests.
I'm just about to reach over her shoulder and press 'no' on her behalf when she
does it herself.

Then it's my turn. I jam in my card, stab in my PIN number, choose
'Cash' and the machine blinks back at me: 'Card retained - refer to bank'.

I have to walk round the square, down the King's Road a bit,
behind Peter Jones, across Sloane Street and along to Eaton Terrace Mews to avoid
the cafe and its justifiably suspicious manager. It's nearly seven when I ring the
bell and so Marion, who opens the door to me, is furious.

'Where the hell have you been?'

I can't be bothered to argue. 'Just walking.'

'Walking? What is it with all this walking suddenly?'

'I dunno, I just like walking.'

The next morning I'm watching TV while Marion gets ready to go
out. Our usual morning routine.

'What are you doing to today?' she asks, looking in her bag for
something.

'Dunno, really.' I keep my finger on the remote so that the telly
flicks through one channel after another.

'Will you turn that off while I'm talking to you?' says Marion,
interrupting her ferreting. I hit the off button and we're both slightly stunned
by the sudden silence.

'That's better,' say Marion after a moment. 'You watch far too
much TV for a young man. You should be out doing things. How do you expect to be
able to make the kind of money you need to live in this style?' Well, that's where
you were supposed to come in, I think, almost laughing out loud at the idea of it.
Did I ever really believe that?

Instead I say, 'I don't know.'

'Such a waste of a life,' says Marion sadly. I let her consider
this tragedy for a minute. Then I switch on the telly again.

'Andrew?'

'What?'

There was a pause.

'I said what are you going to do today?'

'Oh, I don't know. The usual. I might go for a swim a bit later.'
I swill the last of the coffee around my cup and wonder if it's too cold to drink.

'That's a good idea. I'm going to arrange for you to join the
gym I go to down the street. It's extremely good.'

'Thanks,' I say, switching the TV on again.

'They have a very good swimming pool and someone to swim alongside
you all the way.'

There is a pause as I notice a girl in a swimsuit and hope for
a moment that I might have unwittingly stumbled on the porn channel. It's not -
she's actually modelling some white plastic garden furniture on a quiz show. 'What's
the point of that?'

'What's the point of what?' says Marion, now scraping around
in a drawer in her desk. There is another pause. This time I'm sure I've found it.
No, it's an American advert for 'Sports Illustrated - the Swimsuit Edition'.

'The point of having somebody to swim alongside you,' I murmur
vaguely.

 
'Erm.' Marion apparently
finds what she is looking for. 'To keep you company, take your order for the cafe
afterwards. One of them is an astrologist - like she says, you can firm your thighs
and know your future at the same time.'

Perhaps I was just rather drunk last night at Marsha's but I'm
beginning to suspect that I'm becoming quite incoherent. I can't seem to finish
a sentence these days, perhaps because I never have to say anything much, really.
I just have to ask for things - in shops, restaurants, from Ana Maria. Sometimes
I just point or raise my eyebrows. Marion's friends don't really want to hear from
me and I certainly haven't got anything to say to them.

I watch the TV for a moment longer and hear the hoover start
up in the other room. Then I rush upstairs into the bedroom and open the wardrobe.
My two scruffy old bags have long been chucked out but there is a nice new leather
and canvas holdall in their place. I pull it down and then open the drawers.

My socks and underpants are neatly folded. Who else do I know
who has their undies ironed and folded? I pick them up and throw them into the bottom
of the bag. Then I look at them - all unfurled and twisted, like bodies thrown from
a car crash. I pick up a pair of socks. They are silk ones Marion had Ana Maria
buy for me when I complained that all mine had holes in them. I smell them and rub
them gently against my cheek. They catch slightly on day-old stubble. Poor things.
I fold them neatly again and put them back in the drawer. Then I do the same with
the undies. I squash down the bag again and push it back onto the top shelf of the
wardrobe.

On the way to the pool I go into a call box, put ten pence in,
then a twenty just in case and begin to dial Vinny's number at work. Just for a
chat. Perhaps meet up for a drink. The number rings once and I hang up. I stand
and look at the cards around me, offering Strict Nurse, Asian Babe and New to London.
I realise people walking past must assume I'm trying to choose which one to call
so I leave quickly.

Marion and I spend a quiet evening in watching TV at opposite
ends of the settee. I suppose she doesn't want to go out to dinner because she doesn't
really want to talk to me. The feeling is mutual. I can hardly bear to look at her
these days. I think she just wants to get this marriage thing out of the way and
then dump me. I was wondering why she couldn't find an English maid but then who
would want to work six and a half days a week and get treated like shit by a mad
woman? Fifteen grand sounds like quite a bargain on Marion's part when I come to
think about it. Every time she opens her mouth it is to say something ridiculously
offensive. I've asked her a couple of times about the cheque but there is always
a problem with it. Once she said it would take a while to raise it and I said, 'Oh,
come on, you must have that much in your current account.' She told me not to be
impertinent. I just laughed at her. Another time she started writing it but then
Channing rang and next thing she had to get ready for dinner which takes her about
eight hours. I can hardly stand over her and make her write it but it's just such
a shag to keep pestering her. How did I choose such a wrong 'un? I don't know whether
she does it to be annoying or whether she simply doesn't understand she is doing
it. Which is worse?

I don't sleep much that night. Marion tuts every time I turn
over or move. Eventually she says, 'What's the matter with you?'

'I'm getting married tomorrow, remember?'

'So? Just get some sleep. You want to look your best on your
wedding day, don't you?' I can't be bothered to get cross with her. I change my
mind about going through with it every few moments. £15,000 for nothing. I'd be
divorced within a year and no one would be any the wiser. What if the police find
out? What if I'm thrown into a nightmare scenario of official letters, police interviews,
summonses. Would I go to prison? Or would it be just a fine? Marion would have to
pay it - she got me into this mess. I look across at her, apparently asleep peacefully
under her eyepads. Somehow I just know she wouldn't be around if that happened.
I turn over again, away from her, and hug my pillow. No, like Jerry said - and Mark
too - people do it all the time these days, no one ever finds out. No one is ever
caught.

I can smell again the disinfectant and hear the squeak of shoes
on those hard, polished floors in the Registry Office. Would it matter if in years
to come I say to my future fiancée, 'I'd prefer a Registry Office. Why? Not very
religious myself and there is something else I should mention ...' Almost embarrassed
to think it, I find myself wondering, in case the situation ever possibly arose,
about what Jane would want. I keep replaying a conversation with her over and over
in my head. 'Jane, I've told Marion it's over. I've left her. I want to be with
you. I love you.' 'Want to be with you'? No, that doesn't sound right.