Chasing Men (24 page)

Annabel fished in her pocket then, with Hetty in tow, climbed the stairs to flat four, opposite Hetty’s own flat. From within the BJs’ residence came the sound of the television turned up loud, and uproarious laughter.

‘They’ve probably started on the vodka,’ Annabel explained as she put the key in the lock. ‘Tonight’s a girls’ night in. Flo has decided she wants plaits with beads in her hair. It takes ages. Anyway, they wouldn’t hear anyone at the door. If they did they probably wouldn’t bother to answer – Doris is so darned nosy.’

‘She’s probably angling for customers,’ Hetty answered, but was met with a puzzled glance and a shrug from the girl.

Hetty and Annabel entered the hallway of flat four. Above the noise of the video from behind the closed living-room door, Hetty craned to listen. The faint tinkle of running water took her to the bathroom. A wall of steam enveloped her and billowed down the landing. Inside, the bath was full, steaming and overflowing. One tap was turned slightly on. Though barely a trickle, the water had obviously been enough to flood the bath and to seep through to the McDonalds’ flat below.

Hetty reached across and turned off the hot tap. The scalding metal stung her palm. Beneath her breath she swore. With the back brush she hooked up the plug chain.

‘You had a bath before you went for the weigh-in, yes?’ Hetty said grimly, blowing on her tingling fingers. ‘And naturally you forgot to pull the plug.’

A white-faced Annabel hovered, wringing her hands. ‘I was in a hurry. I often forget to let the water out – Shelagh gets hopping mad at me.’

‘Costs a fortune. Waste of electricity.’ Hetty tried to sound severe, but the girl’s distress was almost palpable.

‘They won’t sue, will they? Don’t say it was me, Hetty. Say it was an accident.’

Hetty grunted. The murky water made a noisy glugging as it disappeared, leaving a grey rime around the bath. ‘I won’t say a word if you clean up here. You’re a dope, Annabel, but there’s no doubt it was unintentional, as you say. When you’ve finished, go and apologise to the McDonalds and Doris.’

The bathroom itself was not particularly wet; the water must have found its way quickly through the planking to the floor below. Hetty left Annabel flopped heavily on her knees scrubbing at the tidemark, went downstairs to reassure the anxious neighbours, then returned. At what appeared to be a suitable break in the video programme, she tapped firmly on the living-room door and pushed it open. Inside, the curtains were drawn; the dark room was lit by a single pink-shaded lamp and the flickering screen. Flo and Shelagh were slouched on the sofa, bejeaned legs draped over the arms, their backs to the door.

Flo glanced behind, failed to register that the new entrant was not  Annabel, and pushed, over a bowl of peanuts. ‘Hi, Annie. How did you get on?’

‘Annabel put on weight. Again,’ Hetty said loudly. Two heads, one red-haired, the other dark, popped up simultaneously. Half of Flo’s hair had been put into neat narrow braids with blue beads, the rest stood out in a mass of frizz as if struck by lightning.

‘Oh, hello, Het. Nice to see you. Want some vodka?’

Hetty marched over to the video machine and pressed the pause button. Standing crossly, arms folded, in front of the set, she outlined to the two astonished flatmates the disaster that Annabel’s carelessness had caused. But it was apparent after a few moments that the girls were more than a little drunk, and unable to focus their minds effectively enough to take action.

‘You want us to do anything, Het?’ Shelagh drawled. Her green eyes were
heavy-lidded
. She had begun to plait another of Flo’s braids. ‘I mean, we will if you insist, but I’m not sure my legs’ll do what I tell ’em.’

Hetty sighed. ‘No, it’s under control. Annabel is responsible, so I’d leave it to her.’

‘Right, thanks.’ Flo picked up the peanuts bowl again. In doing so she  pulled the plait tight. ‘Ouch! That hurt. Say, Hetty, you wouldn’t like to give a hand with my hair? It takes hours, but the more the merrier, and quicker.’

Hetty relaxed. ‘I don’t mind. Show me what to do. Annabel did offer me a drink.’

‘Help yourself.’ Two vodka bottles and several cartons of juice sat on a side table with a metal cooler full of ice. Hetty found a tall glass and mixed a vodka and grapefruit juice. It was refreshing after the tension. She downed half quite quickly.

By the time Annabel returned from her
mea culpas
downstairs, Hetty had learned the rudiments of braiding and, being both dextrous and more sober than Shelagh, had made rapid progress. ‘I gather Richard has found himself another love?’ she asked guilelessly, as the four of them settled on the sofa and a couple of floor cushions. Flo lay spreadeagled, her head
accessible to all three, drinking with the aid of a bent straw.

‘Aagh! Richard!’ the girls chorused, and Flo made vomiting gestures.

Despite her disapproval of their disorganised, shiftless life, Hetty could not help smiling. ‘What about the other fellows you brought along to my party? Ted? Stuart? They seemed pleasant enough.’

More miming.

‘Henry?’ Hetty was grinning broadly. ‘Did he manage to meet his father in time?’

‘He got into frightful trouble with his old man,’ Annabel confided. ‘If you hadn’t found him, he’d probably still be out cold on the stairs.’ The bowl of peanuts was in her lap and she stuffed a handful into her mouth. ‘God, Hetty, tell me to
stop eating
.’

‘I think you’re fine as you are,’ Hetty answered firmly. ‘Lots of men would love a lass your shape.’ The image of James, prone and content after a single penetration, floated into her mind. ‘Especially mature men. You’re probably fishing in the wrong pond.’

‘D’you really think so?’

Hetty poured herself another drink. ‘I can see it now. You should come on our programme
Tell Me All
. The three of you.’

She had their full attention, or as much of it as their condition allowed.

‘What’d we have to say?’

‘Well, you’d set out your circumstances. In your own words. Three gorgeous young women, yet the lads you meet are only interested in casual relationships. Where might you find real men, who want to settle down?’

The BJs began to twitter excitedly.

‘But first,’ Hetty continued, ‘you’d have to be clear what you wanted out of it. There’d be lots of phone calls after-wards. And the tabloids might get excited, too. You do dream of settling down, don’t you?’

‘Yes! Yes!’ the three girls chanted together.

Annabel turned wistful eyes on her. ‘What’s it like being married? Having your own home? Your own place, you can turn into a palace, with a smashing geezer rushing back to you every night? Is it absolutely wonderful, like the spreads in
Hello
!
?’

‘Of course,’ Hetty said automatically, then stopped. ‘It depends,’ she continued more cautiously. ‘I mean, you have to consider, do you want children?’

‘Yes,’ said Annabel, dubiously.

‘Eight,’ said Shelagh loudly. ‘I’d love a big family. My grandmother had eleven, my mother has only me and my brother. Provided I can have nannies too.’

‘He’ll have to be wealthy,’ Hetty pointed out, with a smile.

‘Oh, I’ll marry for love. Daddy’ll make a big settlement, just to get me off his hands,’ Shelagh asserted solemnly.

‘What about you, Flo?’ Hetty asked.

‘I’d have Richard, provided I didn’t have to share him.’ Flo’s hair was beginning to come to order; the plaits swung slickly as she shook her head experimentally. ‘Not sure about the sprogs, though.’

Hetty saw suddenly that Flo might be a younger version of Rosa. ‘You don’t feel you’d like kids, Flo?’ she asked.

The girl scratched her nose. ‘Where I come from, so many girls have babies young,
then they’re stuck staying in, stretch-marks ruining their figures, when they should be in their prime. The blokes don’t turn a hair – “Not mine,” they say. Not much future in that. I’d like them
eventually
, I suppose.’ She did not sound convinced.

‘Did you enjoy your kids, Hetty?’ asked Shelagh.

Hetty refreshed her glass a third time before answering. ‘Giving birth, no, awful experience. Thank God the memory fades or we’d never have a second. Little babies, yes, when they’re well behaved. Mine weren’t bad. But after that it gets harder.’

‘Whaddya mean?’

Hetty thought about the distance that had grown between herself and her son, and of Sally’s years of sullenness, only recently eroded. ‘I’m not sure I can say anything very profound. Each family’s different. But children can be disappointing.’

‘I think babies are lovely! I can’t wait!’ Shelagh’s eyes were shining, though as much with alcohol, Hetty guessed, as with anticipation.

‘Then I’d say, pick a man who loves kids too, and who’d make a fine father,’ she suggested. ‘Not Richard, though you never can tell. But everyone starts off with high hopes for their offspring. Not least, that they’ll love their parents and be grateful. It doesn’t work out like that.’

‘I’m grateful to my parents,’ Shelagh burbled. ‘They keep me in the luxury to which I’m accustomed!’ Annabel giggled and nodded in agreement.

‘Do you tell them,’ Hetty asked quietly, ‘that you love them?’

Annabel shrugged. ‘They’d suspect I was after something.’

‘You should. Surprise them. The sweetest remark my daughter ever made to me was not long ago, when she said that at last she saw me as a human being. I was so touched.’

Hetty was surprised at herself: it was not an admission she had expected to make.

‘Would you have wanted to stay single, though, Het?’ Flo was curious.

‘No. But you learn, after a while, that the fairy-tale’s a farce.’ Hetty was startled by her own sharp tone. ‘Fairy-tale marriages, I mean. Marriage is the most complicated relationship of all. And you alter, over time. The two people who walked up the aisle in white tulle and a top hat aren’t the same pair ten years after, with screaming kids and fights over money. Twenty years on, they’ve altered again. Maybe, after another while, you come together once more, but I can’t comment on that.’

‘Ugh! I can’t imagine what it’d be like to be fifty.’ Annabel shuddered.

‘When you’re fifty,’ Hetty said severely, ‘you may find yourself sitting with a bunch of twentysomethings hoping they won’t make the same mess of their lives you have.’

‘You haven’t made a mess, have you, Het?’ Annabel was contrite, and anxious. ‘You look happy. You have friends. You’re never in – you’re out almost as much as us.’

A similar litany from Sally had struck a chord with Hetty a short time before. ‘I don’t know how to measure success,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s enough to feel serene, I suppose. Though when you get to my age, health matters too. And the state of your bank balance. It may seem unromantic, but there you are. There aren’t any rule books. You have to make it up as you go along.’

Blank looks came from each of the BJs.

‘I still dream of the ideal,’ said Shelagh. ‘Home, children – loads of ’em – and a handsome fellow who adores me. But not yet!’

‘I do believe in new experiences, now,’ Hetty continued. She could feel the drink talking, her speech beginning to slur. ‘I’d try anything once. I used to be so conventional P’raps I just bored my husband into someone else’s arms. Should’ve been much less hidebound, more adventurous.’

‘How about a little adventurous entertainment, then?’ Flo had sat up, the hair braiding finished. With the rosy light on her bronze skin, she resembled a young Cleopatra.

‘Depends what you have in mind. Have you got a brace of gorgeous guys in a cupboard?’ Hetty could feel herself becoming roguish.

‘Chance’d be a fine thing. But how about a fizzier way of finishing that vodka? Somebody was boasting about it at lunchtime today. Wanna try?’ Flo disappeared into the kitchen. She returned, a grin on her face, braids slapping against her neck. In her hand were four teaspoons and a giant-size box of Kleenex. ‘Watch.’

She poured a few drops of vodka on to the teaspoon, bent over, pinched one nostril closed with a finger and lifted the teaspoon to her nose. Then with a snort she inhaled deeply, making a noise like the last dregs of a milkshake being sucked up a straw.

‘Yeach!’ she squealed, choked and spluttered, and grabbed a handful of tissues. Her eyes rolled right up into their sockets. She staggered and fell on to the sofa. ‘Oh! Gawd! That’s fantastic!’

As she gasped and rocked, Annabel grabbed a teaspoon and filled it. ‘Not too much,’ warned Hetty, entranced. But Annabel, never one for half measures, lifted the spoon to her nose, closed her left nostril and snorted vigorously through the other.

‘Aagh!’ she yelped, and danced about the room, sneezing furiously. Then, standing stock still, eyes bulging, ‘Oh, my God! Oh, that’s amazing!’

‘You must get a hell of a rush,’ Hetty murmured. ‘Straight into the bloodstream.’

‘I guess so.’ Shelagh was at her side by the table, as Flo moaned and sneezed while Annabel cavorted helplessly. The remaining teaspoons sat invitingly. Shelagh nudged Hetty in the ribs. ‘Go on. I will if you will. Once can’t do any harm, can it? It’s not cocaine, or anything.’

‘Pure stuff, they say, vodka,’ Hetty cogitated woozily. ‘Only a little. Try anything once. No rule books. Be more adventurous …’

Then she and the red-headed girl held their teaspoons in shaky hands and poured each other a few drops each.

‘
Now
!’ Shelagh called, and Hetty did as she had been shown.

The blast of pain in her nostril knocked her sideways, as if someone had stuck a red-hot poker into the membrane. Her head reeled, and she felt herself sway. Then the rush came, a savage scorching blast, akin to swallowing raw alcohol on a sore throat. Her eyes squeezed shut, she reached too late for the tissues and sneezed a gobbet of vodka into thin air. The pulses in her temples throbbed like crazy. Yet she found herself laughing hysterically, as if some great truth had just been revealed to her.

‘Oh!’ She coughed, and tried to stop the room swirling.

It seemed to her that Flo, braids trailing, had slid off the sofa, a silly smile on her face. Annabel, predictably, had already collapsed. Shelagh was clutching her, and crying hoarsely, ‘Try anything! Ooh, Hetty! Is this better than being married, or isn’t it?’