Dog Handling (3 page)

“I’m dying for a pee. Quick,” Liv pleaded, and looked around the garden for an opportune hedge or bike shed. Then she crossed her legs again; the neighbours were notoriously nosy and it’d be all over the local paper the next week. Lenny and Elizabeth were already a rather unusual addition to the quiet Berkshire street. On a good day they were deemed a breath of fresh air—the Tom and Barbara Goode in a neighbourhood of Margot and Jerrys. But when the good life wasn’t going their way the Margot and Jerrys would huff and puff at the lowering tone of the neighbourhood. After January storms, fence panels lay scattered across the garden for months harbouring entire universes of wood lice; the front wall that Lenny had started in 1983 had never quite seen the light of day, and those who actually ventured into the house left with tales of dislodged bathroom tiles and splotches of paint samples all the way through the house, “And on top of perfectly nice wallpaper, too.” But Elizabeth and Lenny would barely have noticed. They had eyes only for one another and their minds were filled like recycling bins with the economic implications of organic farming and adult literacy issues. To them a splotch of paint sample was as good as decorating the house in Primrose Glory.

“Oh, it’s divine. Isn’t it Lenny? I could look at it all day,” Elizabeth would marvel for a while at the patch of yellow on top of twenty-year-old lilac and then read a book, glancing up every so often to envisage Primrose Glory wherever she looked.

“Good god, we thought Oedipus was having another stroke. Come in Livvy.” Lenny opened the French doors in his Betty Ford Clinic T-shirt. A rangy, bearded man who could have passed for the messiah on any day other than a hungover Saturday, he scratched away his hangover and kissed Liv as she hurtled past him to the downstairs bathroom. After much sighing and a minor civil war with the flush on the loo, she emerged smiling and relaxed.

“I’ll put on the kettle. Your mum’s in bed. Go say hello.” Lenny went to boil the kettle but remembered he’d had to use the cable as a makeshift door handle last week, so he boiled a saucepan of water instead.

“Black, loads of sugar please.” Liv left her stepfather humming to himself and wandered upstairs to say good morning to her mother. Lenny and Elizabeth had been married for twenty years now, but still, sometimes Liv had a pang of just wanting her mother to herself, of which Lenny was acutely aware. He was an achingly sensitive man who had endured all manner of tantrums and resentment from his stepdaughter until she was in her early twenties and she suddenly stopped struggling and saw his messianic qualities and twinkly blue eyes instead of an imposter who wanted to take her mother away from her and hurt her as her father had done. Liv’s father had left when she was only five; she’d only ever had a cursory holidays-on-Scottish-islands-type relationship with him. Liv had looked after her mother and protected her for so long that it was finally a relief when she relinquished that mantle to Lenny and began to have a life of her own. Liv thought that part of the reason she’d become an accountant was just as an extension of her protective, coping role in life. It was ordered and financially secure, neither of which had been features in her childhood.

Her mother was at the top of the ramshackle house, behind a door with an old part from a kettle for a handle.

“Mum.” Liv tramped in and sat on the end of the bed. Her mother’s sleepy blond head rose confused from beneath the sheets.

“Darling. I thought you were coming tomorrow. Now what’s this big thing you want to talk to me about?” She kissed Liv on the forehead and settled back into the pillows. “If you’re thinking about inviting Aunt Flora, you know I hate, but hate, her.” Liv had come down to her mother’s for precisely this reason. Elizabeth was wonderfully childlike and had absolutely no idea of how to behave in the real world. She had no regard for convention for convention’s sake, and if she thought the wedding was a bad idea then she’d say so with no anxiety that it might provoke frowns of disapproval from elderly relations. To Elizabeth a wedding wasn’t a big deal, just a lot of fun. She wanted to be surrounded by lovely people, Liv’s friends, and Tim, who she thought was the most handsome man since Gregory Peck, and if it had been up to her would just have sent everyone off into the garden to eat barbecued sausages from paper plates as they sat on tree stumps chatting. Liv would wear some old ballet tutu they had lying around in the loft, and the nuptials could have been taken care of by a friend of hers who was a tarot reader. It was all the same to Elizabeth; the children loved each other and wanted to make a commitment—no matter if it was in St. Paul’s Cathedral or her dilapidated pagoda. Liv, however, felt entirely differently.

“She’s Dad’s sister. We have to have her,” said Liv as Lenny came in with a tray of coffee and some Bombay mix.

“Thought you might be hungry after the journey,” he said as he laid the tray on the floor, the only available space in the dark and chaotic bedroom.

“Thanks, Lenny,” said Livvy as she shovelled down a handful of Bombay mix gratefully. “Besides, she’s my godmother, isn’t she?”

“Dog mother more like. She never even called when you had whooping cough when you were four, Livvy. But it’s your day, petal. If you want her there, then I promise not to pull her chair away when she sits down.” Elizabeth giggled and hugged her mug of coffee. Liv sighed.

The wedding would also be stressful because Liv’s parents hardly ever saw each other. The last time had been the funeral of a mutual friend and had resulted in the hurling of insults and ham sandwiches at the wake. Even if Liv managed to keep tempers sweet, she still had to cope alone with the decisions on peach or cream napkins and lox or melon and prosciutto for the starter. Her mother had no concept of the etiquette of these matters, and her father, being snob extraordinaire, would forever moan if Liv got it wrong. Perhaps coming home hadn’t been such a great idea after all. Instead of her mother’s insouciance rubbing off on Liv, she’d just sunk further into the mires of misery as she realised that the weight of the world was resting squarely on her shoulders.

“Can we give you a hand making the invitations or anything, love?” asked Lenny as he settled down on the bed. Liv thought of the look of horror on her father’s face as he opened an invitation to his only daughter’s wedding that had been crayoned with a lettraset and had Prit-stuck glitter wedding bells on. Perhaps not.

“I think maybe I’ll just go to a printer’s actually, Lenny. Probably cheaper in the long run.”

“In which case, we’ll make the cake, won’t we?” Elizabeth turned to her husband proudly, obviously having forgotten the fact that her fairy cakes had been rejected from Liv’s school fete three years running. In the end, she had to send tinned peaches to the nonperishable stall instead.

“Mum. Lenny.” Liv took a huge breath in. “Do you think that perhaps I’m too young to get married?” There. She’d said it. Her lungs visibly deflated.

Her mother and stepfather took in the question for a long moment, then in unison said, “Oh, of course not, darling.”

Then her mother added, “I was your age when I had you.” Something Liv was only too aware of.

“Exactly,” Liv volunteered cautiously.

“Well, you’re beautiful, darling. And so far as I know not pregnant yet?”

“No. Not pregnant. But, well, you and Dad . . .” God, it was like getting through to someone snorkelling in the Solomon Islands on a mobile phone. “I just wonder if I shouldn’t ought to live a bit more first. Maybe, you know . . . just a bit.” Liv had thrown caution to the wind, she’d lain her life and destiny in her mother’s lap more firmly than the time she had whooping cough.

“Well, darling, if you think so. Perhaps then you’re right. What did you have in mind?” her mother asked as she collected spilled bits of dried spicy pea off the duvet cover.

Well, sleep around a bit, find out if I really do like oysters or if it’s only because Tim says they’re so wonderful, discover whether I could design a hat that somebody wanted to wear. Live a life worthy of an obituary in the
Telegraph.
Be involved in a political sex scandal that would justify my appearance on
Desert Island Discs.
Join the French Resistance if it’s still around. Be a latter-day Joan of Arc. That kind of thing.

“Dunno really,” Liv mumbled.

“Livvy, you know that whatever you decide to do, Lenny and I will support you. If you want to ask your dog mother to the wedding, or your father for that matter, then I promise to be civil. But if you want to call the whole thing off, then I’ll be here with chamomile tea and a large steak.”

“A steak?” Liv was puzzled.

“Well, to put over the black eye that Tim’s going to give you.” Her mother could barely control her laughter.

“And a packet of frozen peas for the bruised shin that his mother will give you.” Lenny joined in the hilarity.

“What about your father? Well, he’ll just disinherit you . . . that is, if the mean bugger’s left you anything in the first place.”

“All right. Very funny.” Liv sulked into her now-cool coffee. “I happen to think it’s quite a serious matter, guys.”

“Oh, darling, I know. But you’re young. Divorce is easy these days. Just don’t fret about it. Tim’s a dreamboat; he’ll be a wonderful husband. But if you want to dally a bit more, then do. We love you no matter what.”

Liv pouted a bit. She wanted a braying, bossy mother in a body warmer and knitted socks to tell her to marry Tim or the family would disown her, put her up for adoption. Or she wanted a militant feminist mother who would leave stickers on light switches and bathroom cabinets imploring her daughter not to enter into the exchange of property and shameful exploitation of womanhood that is marriage. Did she get either? No. What Liv got was a big, loving liberal kiss on the cheek that was the same one she’d been given when her mother and Lenny told her they’d still love her if she went to Aberystwyth instead of Bristol. If she dropped out of her A levels and became a hairwasher in A Cut Above in the High Street. If she decided to give up six years of piano lessons because her teacher smelled of parma violets. Just as long as she was happy and not hurting anyone else Lenny and Elizabeth were fine. In fact, if she weren’t so practical and capable Liv would probably be in therapy right now declaring Tough Love on her parents for turning her into a well-adjusted adult at the age of seven. Crying because if she hadn’t spent her life being so grown-up she might not be in this mess. She’d have been thrown out of the Groucho Club for getting diabolical on cocaine, had at least one trip to an STD clinic, and have taken up a promising career in something underpaid and pointless like fashion journalism. There, it was all their fault. Liv scowled over the Bombay mix and longed for the wasted youth she’d never had.

Chapter Three

Be Careful What You Wish for
Because You Just Might Get It

L
iv’s bag kept leaping out and thwacking people as she ran full tilt down Westbourne Grove to meet Alex and Tim in the pub. She was feeling much brighter since her weekend of indecision at her parents’. She and her mum had got out the old biscuit box full of pictures and she had looked back over five years of Liv ’n’ Tim until her anxieties had evaporated. Of course he was the man for her. There he was smiling out at her from under his snorkelling mask in the Bahamas; raising a pint of Guinness in a pub in Dublin when they were still students, grinning his crooked-toothed smile as he celebrated Liv passing her accountancy exams. He was, quite simply, part of her. Part of her past, present, and now her future. It had all sunk into place. She put her wedding jitters behind her as she realised how ridiculous she had been to think that vanishing into the sunset with a Frenchman on a motorbike might make her happy. So what if she never had an obituary in the
Telegraph
describing the nights she’d spent with Noel Coward sipping gin and tonic in Jamaica? Noel Coward was dead. And wanderlust was all very well, but you usually ended up with malaria if you set foot outside the EU, so exotic climes could go take a hike, too. No, Liv had found her milieu. She would be content to be remembered by all who knew her as a wonderful wife and mother, for her very accomplished dinner parties, and for her ability to juggle accountancy with gnocchi making. What more could the modern woman ask for?

The Bonaparte was heaving with the usual Friday night crowd. In the corner a table of Britpop’s finest downed pints and bangers and mash while the Notting Hill Glossies and home-for-the-weekend supermodels tried to hide their sheen beneath woolly bobble hats and parkas. On a prime table beneath the television set Tim, Alex, and Liv flicked beer mats and shouted to be heard above the din.

“So I think I’m going to go to Sydney for a month or two,” Alex said as she stirred up her seabreeze with her finger.

“A month or two? How come?” Liv asked. “Are you going to be back for the wedding?”

“Yeah, of course I will, sweetheart. It’s just this Australian guy Charlie that I’m seeing. He’s going back on business and his mother has this beach house she hasn’t used for twenty years that I can stay in, so I thought I’d go and finish my thesis in the sunshine.”

“Don’t like it too much and stay forever, will you?” Liv said. She was used to Alex jetting off at a moment’s notice, but Australia wasn’t exactly a hop, skip, and a jump away.

“So who’s the new bloke? Is he marriage material?” Tim asked.

“Marriage?” Alex laughed. “Timbo, I haven’t been out with a man who was marriage material since my father took me to Thorpe Park aged seven. But he is sex in a sports car and owns seven newspapers and three glossies. Oh, and a news network.”

“What’s he called? I might have heard of him,” Liv asked.

“Charlie Timpson”—Alex pouted contemplatively—“and his ears are a bit on the flappy side, but he’s sweet as a doughnut and not too dumb.”

“And quite rich, too?” asked Tim with blissful male naivete.

Alex gave him her Is the Dalai Lama Buddhist? look and carried on, “There’s some horse race thingy in Melbourne, so we’ll probably go and see that. Should be fun.”