Every Good Girl (28 page)

‘I thought your mum would be sick of the sight of nurses, after staying in here,' Jennifer told him. She looked nervous, her fingers flicking at the front edge of her sky blue linen jacket and checking the buttons on her pale pink blouse. Graham grinned at her. ‘You look really nice. She'll like you,' he said simply. He was nervous too, deep down, but he didn't want her to know. This one mattered, this one mustn't be frightened off. He felt excited about something he'd discovered that morning as he went to work: the realization that if Monica made a big scene and forced him to choose – go on living with her in the home he'd had since early childhood or go off to be with Jennifer – it would have to be Jennifer. The thought made his stomach tighten. He'd caught up with real people, at last, decided something that most people deal with at twenty-something, if not sooner. He just hoped that, leaving it this late, there wouldn't be any unpleasant
hostilities. Monica would need looking after, that much he knew, but something could be worked out.

‘I brought the cake,' Jennifer said as they climbed into the Fiesta. ‘Coffee and walnut, like you said.'

‘
Chocolate
and walnut, you mean,' he corrected. ‘That's the one she likes, remember when I told you?' His mouth twitched into a smile, recalling what had happened that night after they'd talked about the cake. Like a thrilled schoolboy he'd driven home with silly, juvenile phrases running though his head:
Doing it, shafting, shagging, screwing, fucking, having it off
. He'd evoked a satisfying feeling of mild dirtiness, naughty secrecy, shameful thrills. He'd kept pulling the feeling back whenever he had a quiet moment.

‘Doesn't she like coffee flavour then?' Jennifer's anxious face was turned towards him. She was wearing grey eye shadow which made her eyes look huge and vulnerably young. ‘I could always just leave it in the car I suppose.'

‘Don't worry, I expect she'll like it. She'll be pleased you went to the trouble. That's the kind of thing she likes, doesn't really matter too much about what flavour.' It wasn't completely true, but reassuring Jennifer was very much the most important thing now. If she chewed her bottom lip much more, all her careful lipstick would come off and stick to her teeth. Mother would think that slovenly.

Monica had expected some young flighty blond thing, something like that Helen from years ago. Even though he'd mentioned that Jennifer was in her forties, she'd still pictured a skirt too short, hair too brassy and a small but aggressive bust. It was quite a shock when Graham introduced Jennifer, it shook her off her stride.

‘Oh. Hello,' Monica squawked, startled that Graham was bringing to her sitting room someone large, not
frumpy but undisguisedly middle-aged and who might, at a push, even be a grandmother herself. It made her realize sharply that Graham was no longer a boy bringing home a shy date.

‘Nice to meet you, Mrs Dyson. I work at the hospital with Graham,' Jennifer said, offering her nurse-clean hand to be shaken. ‘We've become friends,' she added, and the smile faltered as if she'd perhaps gone too far, or at least said something stupidly obvious. Monica was pleased by this, it showed suitable nervous deference and she pulled herself up to her full majestic height, glad, in her suit of imperial purple, to feel at an advantage once more. Now she could smile and bestow kindness. Graham hovered uncertainly, his hands scuffing at the back of the sofa, clenching and unclenching as if he didn't know what to do with them.

‘Do sit down, and do call me Monica,' his mother said with a regal smile, and Graham sighed, relaxed. It would be all right.

Monica became very pleased with Jennifer. Here was a woman who asked about health and who sympathized over hospital food. She was a doer, not a sitter. When Monica got up to go to the kitchen and make the tea, Jennifer was on her feet instantly, insisting that there was no need for her to stir, she would find her way around. Graham sat looking stolid, watching them both as if he was on the edge of a dance floor observing the action. Jennifer gave him a look, a really amused what-makes-you-think-you-can-just-sit-there look.

‘Oh leave him,' Monica laughed, reaching across and patting his knee. ‘He's been at work since seven this morning.' Something guilty stirred in Graham's face. ‘So's Jennifer,' he said, hauling himself out of the chair
and going with her to the kitchen.

‘Well there's a turn-up. Nina should be here to see this,' Monica said to herself. She could hear them murmuring across the hall in the kitchen. There were comfortable sounds of the kettle, the rattle of crockery, sounds of home. She felt relaxed, almost sleepy. She'd not felt like that with any of the others. Not with that Helen, though she was so many years ago she didn't really count, or a skinny brittle-haired mousy thing called Susie who'd worn jeans so tight she'd gone pale as she sat down, and not with the sulky hairy one who'd taken up so much room on the sofa with her voluminous hand-crafted patchwork skirt and orange sandals. She'd had very dirty toes but hadn't taken up Monica's whispered offer of the use of the bath.

‘Here we are,' Jennifer announced. She was carrying a large cake, held up importantly in front of her as if this was a birthday. Graham was behind with the tray.

‘So you two work together. How interesting,' Monica commented as she poured tea.

‘Well not exactly together,' Jennifer told her. ‘I'm up on the wards of course, but we do run into each other from time to time, don't we?' Monica's quick brain supplied the word ‘darling' at the end of Jennifer's sentence. She didn't look quite like the frippery sort who'd actually say it, but something like it lingered in the atmosphere. So she'd been right all the time, Graham probably hadn't seen an owl in months.

‘Do you enjoy bird-watching too? And looking at aeroplanes too?' Monica enquired mischievously.

Jennifer didn't even look puzzled, which was a small disappointment.

‘Well I can tell a Concorde from a Jumbo and a sparrow from a thrush, that sort of thing. Graham's promised to show me some more exotic species later in
the summer. In Norfolk, didn't you say, Graham? We thought we might go for a long weekend.' Jennifer blushed slightly, and Monica was delighted that she'd given so much away.

‘What a good idea. Graham hasn't had a holiday for ages. And so many air bases out that way too, I gather. Perhaps while you're away I could go and stay with Nina for a few days . . .' her voice quavered slightly. Graham looked at her quickly. ‘Well yes you could,' he said, ‘She did ask you when you were in hospital if you wanted to go there. It won't be for long anyway.'

Monica sipped her tea rather sulkily. ‘Or you could come with us,' Jennifer suggested brightly. Graham glared at her. ‘What's wrong?' Jennifer asked him. ‘Don't you think that would be fun?'

Monica took a large bite of her cake and a sharp intake of breath at the same time, which was a mistake. Choking and spluttering, she felt hot and out of control, fighting for air and starting to panic. Her vision blurred by unfocused fear, she didn't even see Jennifer leave her chair, just felt her big capable hands circling her, hauling her up and squeezing her ribcage hard. Cake particles flew over the rug where the grey cat sneaked up immediately to investigate them, and Monica realized the moment she started worrying about the mess that death wasn't an option this time.

‘There. All better,' Jennifer said, settling Monica back in the chair and handing her a box of tissues. Monica leaned her head against the chair's embroidered wing and sighed. ‘I do rather prefer chocolate cake to coffee, you know, dear,' she murmured weakly.

Nina didn't want to cook supper. Just the sight of the pale dead chicken made her feel sick. It looked, to her nauseated eyes, like a piece of sculpted lard. ‘It's free
range, it's probably had as good a life as a hen gets, but even the sight of it's making me feel really sick,' she told Henry as she looked in the fridge to see if there was any alternative that she might feel better able to handle. Henry took a leisurely swig from his bottle of Becks. His eyes roved round the room, inspecting his paintwork for blemishes. ‘Missed a bit in that corner,' he said, waving his bottle towards the front window. ‘I could pop in some time tomorrow and touch it up for you.'

Nina started cutting a cucumber and eating a couple of the rings. They felt cool and fresh, just bearable. ‘No don't worry about it, just think of it as the Islamic tradition, that nothing can be perfect unless it's created by God.'

‘That leaves only plants. Oh, and people if you could call them perfect what with humans having a hand in making them,' he said looking puzzled. ‘Perhaps that's what's wrong with you, about the chicken and feeling sick,' he suggested idly. ‘Perhaps you're pregnant.'

Nina put the knife down and turned to stare at him. She laughed. ‘Oh heavens, Henry what a ridiculous idea. Now you've made me feel quite faint!' Teasing him, she did a bit of theatrical swaying, clutching the edge of the sink.

‘Are you all right? Sorry, whatever I said I was only joking. OK I'll leave the paint.' Henry was anxious and beside her now, arm round her, clutching her tight. He was doing ‘reassurance', Nina recognized, and something more. She struggled free, punching him lightly to make sure he knew it really was just fun.

‘I'll make you a cup of tea shall I?' he offered. ‘You look like you need one.'

‘Henry I really was just playing. Though the queasiness is real enough. I expect it's something I ate. Tea
would be lovely though, thanks. Weak, no milk. I'm afraid that's something else that makes me feel a bit peculiar.'

Emily threw
Man-Date
across her bedroom and decided rules were for breaking. She would phone Simon. If she hadn't got an essay to finish, she would have done it from a payphone as close as she could get to his flat. Then, when he said something like ‘I wish you were right here, right now,' she would be. Home or out though, she wanted to feel as good as she could about herself while she did it so she rolled off the bed and went across the landing to the bathroom. She would shower and put make-up on and wear something that made her feel sexy. He'd just have to sense it down the phone. If she wanted him to imagine her as irresistible, it would be useless for her to be still in her sweaty school shirt and the deadly bottle-green pleated skirt.

The aroma that hit her as soon as she opened the bathroom door reminded her of hot holidays. It was suntan lotion, lots of it, slapped on for some serious absorbing of the rays. It had to be Lucy who'd got it out; only the two of them ever used this bathroom. She's so bloody messy, Emily complained to herself.

There were towels all over the floor and the cupboard under the wash-basin was open with all kinds of things pulled out as if Lucy had been searching for something in a big hurry. Emily bent down and started putting away a split bag of disposable razors, two spare cans of deodorant, a travel pack of clothes-washing liquid and a four-pack bag of loo-rolls. She couldn't find the Ambre Solaire bottle, though there seemed to be quite a lot of lotion spilled all over the sink, and she assumed Lucy had taken it off
somewhere with her. ‘What's the little sod up to?' she murmured as she tidied. There was something gooey all over one of the pale blue towels too, something pale that didn't smell too good. Certainly isn't the suntan stuff, Emily thought as she sniffed at it. It smelt like old milk, something forgotten at the back of the fridge and accidentally poured onto cereal. ‘Ugh!' she said, putting the towel to her nose and taking a tentative sniff. She looked around but only Lucy's school shoes and a sweatshirt were left on the floor. In the bin was a white carton with a torn blue lid. Double cream? With a best-before from some time last week? Emily puzzled. Whatever was Lucy up to?

‘I don't want to have any more children. I don't want to have any children with you.'

Joe walked by himself over Battersea Bridge practising saying these two sentences out loud. However he said it, they both sounded equally cruel and final. He wasn't sure which one would sound worse to Catherine, and he wasn't even sure which one was more true. Not that it mattered which he chose: either would be devastating for her and would certainly mark the collapse of their relationship as soon as the words were out. There would simply be nowhere for them to go on to from there. He tried lightening the words with kindness, consideration – a list of mitigating circumstances to make her (and himself) feel better about it. It wouldn't be fair, he would explain to her, to deprive her of the chance to create a family with someone else. It wouldn't be fair to continue the relationship knowing that that was how he felt and knowing that she, with her thermometer and charts and babywear catalogues, felt exactly the opposite. He would tell her all that, make sure she knew it was
her
he was thinking of as much as, no,
more than
, himself. She was such a beautiful girl, talented, clever – everything a trophy wife, he caught himself thinking disloyally, could be. She'd make some lucky rich old bastard a terrific consort. But not him. Later in life than most, he'd finally grown out of girls. He'd
have to get used to living alone.

Wallowing in the prospect of eternal solitude, he imagined himself over years ahead, becoming one of those old men with a collection of pastel cardigans, each one just lightly stained with trickled blobs of beige dinner-for-one. He couldn't think of anything more depressing. Perhaps one day, out of sheer loneliness, he'd team up with a calm widow and they'd have an Afghan hound just like Genghis which he'd walk in the Brompton Cemetery and remember the unappreciated glorious days when his daughters were little, life's possibilities seemed endless and Nina hadn't yet despaired of him.