The Facts of Life (54 page)

‘Did I just do what I think I did?’ Alison asked, stunned at herself. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Mind?’ he gasped, ‘I’ve been wondering how to do that since I was fifteen and you just came out and did it in seconds.’

‘Maybe she knew already,’ Sam suggested.

‘I’m sure she knew,’ Alison laughed. ‘She just wasn’t thinking when she planned the sleeping arrangements.’

‘Well she looked pretty surprised to me,’ Jamie said and his words seemed borne out by what happened next. Francis came out to greet them as they returned to the hall and he shepherded them away from the kitchen doorway for a fireside drink in the sitting room. When Miriam joined them, some twenty minutes later, her crackling laughter and tense smile could not disguise a fresh redness around her eyes.

It was so rare to see her mother tearful – the last time, she recalled, had been at the shooting of John Lennon – that Alison was filled with tenderness towards her, coloured a little by the excellent whisky sours Francis had mixed them all. She was glad that the Boys were being monopolised by man-talk about journey times and roadworks because it was easier to draw Miriam onto the sofa beside her.

‘Happy Christmas,’ she said.

‘Happy Christmas, Angel. I’m so glad you all made it down.’

‘Me too. Sandy had almost persuaded me to work for Crisis instead.’

‘Those poor people,’ Miriam sighed, sparing a thought for the homeless, then started, by association, appraising Sam, who had stood to warm his back at the fire. He was hardly recognisable as the man Alison had brought in from the street all those months before. Leaning against the richly decorated mantelshelf, wearing black jeans and a new, royal blue cord shirt over a gleaming white tee-shirt, he looked more like a model in a Christmas fashion spread than a builder who had done time. She watched him smile as his glass was refilled.

We have corrupted him
, she thought, then saw the idea was as naive as it would be patronising to say they had ‘saved’ him.

‘He seems very nice,’ Miriam said.

‘He is,’ Alison confirmed then looked away, confused by an inappropriate spasm of desire. ‘You’ll see.’

‘He doesn’t seem very … well … you know.’

Alison grinned at her coyness.

‘Neither does Jamie,’ Alison said.

‘No,’ her mother sadly admitted. ‘Neither he does.’

‘It’s okay, Mum. They’re mad about each other.’

‘Good. I’m glad,’ Miriam said breathily, before making a palpable gear change back up into a more convivial mood. ‘What
are
they finding to talk about?’

‘It was roads. Now it’s work. You know what Francis is like on the dignity of labour. He’s probably saying he doesn’t understand why so many people carry on being unemployed when someone as underqualified as Jamie could drop one job and pick up another so easily.’

‘Being his usual sensitive self.’

Alison pricked up her ears.

‘Do I detect a note of disenchantment?’

‘No. Not really,’ Miriam said, but then she turned back from studying the men and her eyes betrayed her. ‘But you know how he can be.’

‘The thing is, Sam,’ Francis was saying, ‘I can call you that, can’t I? We don’t stand on ceremony here.’

‘Sure,’ Sam nodded his assent.

‘The thing is, my dad was a working man too, a plasterer, and so was my granddad. So I know what real work is. Now these two,’ he indicated Jamie and Alison, ‘they don’t know the meaning of labour. I mean, have you ever come across two such pointless occupations as selling classical records –’

‘CDs,’ Jamie broke in.

‘CDs. Whatever. And publishing highbrow novels which a fraction of the population read. Pointless. They could stop tomorrow and the world would still turn. But building, now
that’s
a worthwhile trade for a man.’

‘So what do you do, Francis?’ Sam asked, adding the Christian name with a barely audible irony.

‘Well now I’m an accountant, of course.’

‘Of course.’

‘But I
used
to work for my dad, in the holidays, even when I was a nipper. I replastered the guest bathrooms here myself actually.’

A kitchen timer went off in Miriam’s pocket, breaking up the conversation to call them all to the dining room for a rich spread of duck soup, roast gammon and profiteroles. Crossing the hall, Alison snatched a moment with Sam and Jamie.

‘She fancies him,’ she told Jamie. ‘I can tell.’ Jamie cast his eyes to heaven. He was slightly drunk.

‘I’ll protect you,’ he told Sam.

‘And you’re getting on well with Francis,’ she added. ‘No-one usually knows what to
say
to him.’

‘He’s all right,’ Sam said. ‘Quite funny really. Well … I thought I ought to make an effort, you know?’ He paused as Francis bustled past them with a bottle of claret he had left by the fire to take off its chill.

‘Something rather special I’ve been saving up,’ he said as he passed them, stroking the label.

‘Smashing,’ Sam said, adding in an undertone, when Alison caught his eye, ‘Right-wing twat.’ For a moment his face was too close. She was too aware of his chin. The fullness of his lower lip. His eye seemed to linger on her longer than was necessary.

Stop it
, she thought.
Stop it at once
, and she slipped aside into the kitchen to see if she could help.

During dinner it was Miriam’s turn to be charmed, sitting between Sam and Jamie while Alison sat by Francis.

‘What do you
really
think about having these two share a bed under your roof?’ she wanted to ask him. ‘What would you be saying if Jamie was
your
only son and not hers?’ For once, however, she found it hard to be angry with him. Sam’s attempts, however cynical, had nonetheless humanised him in a way that Miriam’s efforts had never succeeded in doing. Either from sensitivity or self-absorption, Francis managed to pass the whole meal without so much as a passing reference to her still being single even though Jamie, for better or worse, was hitched.

As glasses were raised and eyes sparkled, enlivened by candlelight, she kept thinking of her brother’s secret, biding its time in the shadows, just out of sight. By the standards of their generation, Miriam and Francis probably thought they had passed the evening’s stiff test of social attitudes with flying colours – a minor awkwardness here and there, a few tears shed in the kitchen, perhaps a few hot words exchanged out of sight between courses – and yet, compared to the test Jamie still had in store for them, being civil to a son’s boyfriend was elementary as finger painting. This thought, too, softened Alison’s heart towards them and, when the time came for opening presents over coffee and yet more alcohol, made it easier to accept their entirely unsuitable gift of a three-speed hairdryer with ‘professional’ diffuser, ‘bodifying’ attachments and hot curling set.

Sam had given her a bottle of Italian scent, which was probably far more than he could afford, given that he had been nowhere near a duty-free shop. Delighted, she squirted some on her wrists and was wreathed at once in a warm, jasmine cloud. Jamie was always cool and uninvolved about present buying so she guessed that Sam had chosen it on his own, and was doubly touched. By comparison, the book she had given him seemed a lordly, lazy choice. She crossed the room to kiss him, but he seemed flustered at the abruptness of the gesture and she realised it was the first time she had done more than touch him diffidently on the shoulder. Jamie had given her a new recording of
Gurrelieder
she had been hankering after. She turned to thank him but found he had suddenly fallen asleep, his head lolling towards Sam’s shoulder on the sofa-back. Sam made as though to wake him but she shook her head. Francis chortled, tickled by the evident tenderness between the two men.

‘Tired himself out selling symphonies to the undeserving rich,’ he said, glancing at his watch as he stood. ‘Ah well. Midnight beckons.’ Miriam wandered off to fetch scarves and coats. Alison had been going to chicken out of church, thinking one could take duty too far, but she realised that the Boys might appreciate an hour alone on the sofa by the fire. She looked at Jamie dozing. Yet again he had won the fatted calf without even trying.

‘See you at breakfast,’ she told Sam as envy lent a twist to their parting.

They were no sooner in the back of Francis’s Jaguar than her mother began voicing worries.

‘I still don’t understand why he threw in a perfectly good job at Lloyd’s to become a sales assistant,’ she said.

‘Quality of life,’ Alison improvised. ‘He works with nicer people now. He can be himself. And the money’s not so bad. After all he’s already paid his mortgage off.’

‘Yes but …’

‘I don’t think he’ll do it forever, if that’s what you’re worried about. It’s just a stop gap.’

‘But I can’t bear it if he becomes one of those pathetic thirty-something drop-outs.’

‘Well you should know all about those!’ Francis jeered from the front, ignored by Miriam.

‘Not much danger of that,’ Alison told her, crossing her fingers. There was a pause. Miriam glanced forward at Francis and saw that, despite the interjection, he was entirely focused on the business of driving in a straight line and watching out for policemen.

‘We’re talking about him again,’ Miriam said ruefully. ‘We never seem to talk about you, Angel.’

‘No,’ Alison agreed. ‘Funny that.’

‘How
are
things?’

‘Things are fine.’

‘Good. I’m so glad,’ Miriam said, unable to suppress her true concern. ‘And he looks terribly thin,’ she went on. ‘Has he been ill?’

‘No,’ Alison insisted and forced a sisterly smile. ‘I think he’s just been so happy, he’s stopped eating for comfort. Unlike me.’

‘You don’t have to, you know. It’s quite simple, Angel. I was reading about it the other day at the hairdresser’s. You just have to ask yourself before you eat anything, “Now am I eating this from body hunger or soul hunger?” and if it’s soul hunger, you drink a glass of water instead.’

For the rest of the short drive, Miriam was successfully diverted into diet chat before the Christmas ritual took over. On the drive home, she was overcome by exhaustion and wine and fell fast asleep on Alison’s shoulder. Alison recognised that the time she had read of in self-help manuals had arrived – she had started mothering her mother.

Christmas Day dawned sunny and unchristmassy with not even a threat of frost, much less of snow. The effect was not helped by Alison’s first glimpse of the morning being Miriam and Francis jogging across the garden in coordinating tracksuits, pursued by the dogs, Francis vociferously in the lead. She would not have minded so much if her mother’s transformation had been successful. But her effort to keep up, in every sense, was too pathetically palpable and Alison turned aside from the window in revulsion. As always, having been made to open their presents the night before, the day felt as heavy and directionless as any bank holiday Monday. She had packed a bag full of little presents – some useful, some funny-and a pair of old rugger socks, so as to retaliate if Jamie and Sam had thought to surprise her with a stocking. But they hadn’t, so she left the things tucked away in her case. She tried to snatch a quick coffee and orange juice in peace with the jumbo crossword, but soon had Miriam and Francis making a noisy and complicated breakfast around her, Francis steaming slightly despite the towel about his glistening neck.

‘Happy Christmas, Angel,’ Miriam said.

‘Happy Christmas, Angel,’ he echoed her, pleased at his tease. Miriam giggled and Alison somehow knew they had made love last night, or perhaps this morning. Francis did his best to irritate her into a good humour by leaning sweatily over her shoulder to supply unhelpful suggestions for the crossword. Then they were joined by the Boys.

All unwitting of the effect it might have, Sam was wearing an old speckled jersey of Jamie’s, the only one that had survived from Miriam’s knitting era.

‘Suits you,’ Miriam told him as she kissed both of them on the cheek, clasping her pain before it had time to sting, as a gardener might a nettle. Stirring sugar into his coffee – a new habit-Jamie looked drained, as though he had barely slept, and Sam had grey stains below pinched eyes.

‘How did you sleep?’ Alison murmured to him while Francis demonstrated a new electric slicing machine to Jamie.

‘Not much,’ he mumbled, picking sleep from an eye. ‘Does it show?’

‘Naa,’ she assured him, unconvincingly. ‘Not much. Maybe they’ll go for a walk and you can collapse later. The party isn’t till tomorrow so we’ve a day off.’

‘Francis has had a great idea,’ Miriam announced. ‘It’s so sunny, almost warm, so we thought we could take the bikes and ride out along the tow path and have lunch at the Old Swan.’

‘Have you got enough bikes?’ Alison asked, clutching at straws.

‘Of course. Now that we’ve got the tandem.’

‘You’ve bought a
tandem
?’

‘We couldn’t resist it,’ Miriam confessed as though admitting a weakness for Sèvres.

‘Well, I –’ Sam began to demur, with a glance at Jamie, ‘I don’t know how.’

‘Great idea,’ Jamie cut in with a rebellious air. ‘Let’s.’

Alison caught Sam’s eye. He shrugged. Breakfast trailed on. Francis and Miriam went upstairs to shower and change and Jamie insisted on watching the special Christmas episode of
Mulroney Park
he had taped the previous evening, even though he knew Miriam might be thrown into a bad mood at the sight of the soap’s star, Myra Toye.