Getting Over It (8 page)

A frosty silence ensues until Tina breaks it with the polite enquiry, “So how big was his todger?” I admit it is bonsai, we honk with laughter, and cordial relations are resumed.

“So why bother with him?” she gasps eventually.

I shrug down the phone. “It’s just… I can’t explain it. I like him. I feel—don’t laugh—drawn to him. And he was so sweet when I was upset. And it was the first time. Maybe he was nervous. Maybe it was cold in the room—”

“Maybe,” Tina interrupts, “he has a needle dick!” We chortle some more—although her chortling is rather more hearty than mine—then I excuse myself and plod to Waitrose.

Five exhausting hours later, the lair is painstakingly prepared. I’ve banished an incredulous Luke to the pub and tidied the kitchen. The mash is mashed, the fish is cooking, the table is laid, the candles are lit, the wine is chilled, the butter is trimmed, I’ve bought a large baguette to go with it, although I had to fold it in half so it would fit in the bag, and I—aka dessert—am washed, brushed, dressed, and tarted to the max. The only missing ingredient is Marcus.

I wait until ten to ten, eat the entire fish dish myself, and let Fatboy feast on the mash.

Chapter 10

I
T’S DAYS LIKE TODAY
I wish I’d invented the cocktail umbrella. Billions of quid for one minute of basic origami. After being stood up by Marcus, I drove to the pub, found Luke, ordered the biggest, frilliest pina colada on the list, and—to add insult to jealousy—the cocktail umbrella broke when I tried to open it. When I complained, Luke noticed I was holding my car keys and confiscated my drink.

I take it up with him this morning, two days later. “You only dared take away my pina colada because it was me,” I snap. “If I was a skinhead or Arnold Schwarzenegger, I bet you’d have let me keep it!”

He looks hurt and about to argue, then notices my rabid expression and keeps quiet. Luke has been tiptoeing around me ever since Marcus went AWOL. Admittedly, on Sunday morning he did exclaim, in a voice of epiphany, “He must be staying with that pop star from Second Edition!” That apart, he’s been a model of sensitivity and tact. I, meanwhile, have been a model of sourness and temper. Partly because of Marcus, partly because of Tom, mainly because—thanks to my non-innovative mind—I have to return to work today.

I slink into the office, trying to avoid attracting attention. There is a barely perceptible hush as I walk in, almost as if I’m wearing last season’s sneakers. Which I am. Tina breaks the silence by shouting, “Bradshaw! Welcome back!” Lizzy rushes over to give me a fierce hug and three kisses (left cheek, right cheek, then just as I’m backing off, a surprise swoop on the left cheek. I think it’s a continental thing). “Helen,” she says bossily, “take it easy today. If it gets too much, go for a walk. And here, take this. It’ll help you sleep better.”

She presses a small object into my hand before running back to her desk. It is a bottle of aromatherapy oil. “Lavender Green Absolute,” it reads—and underneath, in smaller letters for the more intellectual users, “
Lavandula officinalis
.” I’m touched, although the last time I had trouble sleeping, herbs, roots, and blooms had sod-all sophorific effect. I am grateful for Lizzy’s gift though, because—contrary to myth—when you are features assistant on
GirlTime
magazine you receive one freebie a year, which is inevitably a piece of crap no one else wants, like a fluorescent orange mobile phone case.

Some colleagues—after wary observation of my apparently stable exchange with Lizzy—trundle up to say they’re sorry about my dad. Others send me kindly e-mails, and a few look shifty and treat me as if I have Ebola. Laetitia doesn’t know what to do. Our wonderfully brusque “Agony Aunt” has sent me a sweet letter (no whimsical, lily sketch sympathy card for her) advising me not to feel bad about the difficult times nor sad about the good times and that my father will always be with me. I turn pink with annoyance—people seem determined to distress me with sentimentality.

Laetitia mistakes my displeasure for a mewling alert and murmurs, “Stiff upper lip, stiff upper lip.” Then she dispatches me to fetch her breakfast (one slice of wholemeal toast with peanut butter, no butter, and a cappuccino with cinnamon, no chocolate). I buy a double espresso and a blueberry muffin for myself, which I eat guiltily while Lizzy’s back is turned (“Muffin is just a sneaky word for cake!”).

The day isn’t too bad. I spend it transcribing readers’ letters and other yawnsome copy onto the computer system (our octogenarian film critic insists on writing his reviews manually!). I ring freelance writers to remind them of the impending features meeting—the slackers never send in ideas otherwise. I call a rent-a-quote doctor to get him to detail the symptoms of chlamydia (Answer: Barely any. So unless you strike lucky with discharge, the first thing you know about it is, you’re infertile). And I collect Laetitia’s trouser-suit from the dry cleaners. The one advantage of being back at work is that I have less time to brood about Marcus. Or Jasper, who—I realize—hasn’t rung me for over two and a half weeks. The one disadvantage of being back at work is that when Lizzy, Tina, and I go out for lunch, I am forced to listen to the wonder of Adrian for sixty minutes. Even Lizzy stifles a delicate yawn. It looks like an uneventful week.

Wednesday evening. I slouch home and slam the door. As I expect, the flat is empty. Luke is at probably the pub—he divides his time between bar work and bar play, and selling advertising space for a car magazine. The bar work I can understand, the selling of advertising space confused me. Luke tried to explain. He doesn’t meet his clients. He sits in a stuffy room in a crumbly building full of scruffy men and tired women and old telephones. No one wastes time saying hello. They come in, sit down, and plough through other car magazines containing lists of secondhand cars for sale. Then they ring the contact numbers in the other magazines and persuade whoever is trying to sell their car to cough up again to advertise with
this
magazine. As he is freelance, Luke is paid entirely on commission.

A few months back, I tried to establish how, with his infamous diplomacy skills, he makes any money. “I only phone people from Wales,” he replied. “What!” I said. According to Luke, the Welsh are the most friendly and least shouty people in the UK. They often take pity on him and pay up. I smile to myself as I recall this conversation, then I hear a noise and stop smiling.

The noise is a seductive giggle and it comes from the living room. I curse myself for slamming the front door and start to creep to my room. Too late. Marcus—last seen retreating butt-naked into his bathroom—pops his head round a corner and says in a jolly voice, “Hellie, meet Catalina!” A pretty woman with bright red plaits and huge green eyes bounces into the hallway. Interestingly, she is wearing a peasant smock and a woollen hat with ear flaps.

“Hey, Helen,” she says.

“Hello, Catalina,” I reply. I suspect that while she looks like a Bosnian refugee, she is actually a pop star. She is chemically friendly, which makes it even worse. This must be Marcus’s inimitable way of telling me he doesn’t want a relationship. What a coward. I fix him with a steady look of disdain.

“Hellie,” he cries, “why so stern!” He addresses Catalina. “When I first knew Hellie, she was such fun! But now she’s so stern!”

Catalina rattles out a machine-gun laugh and squeals, “
Kidding
?” as if she’s just been told her abysmal record has sensationally reached number ninety-four in the charts.

“My father just died,” I say for dramatic effect and to make Marcus look stupid. “It tends to make you less fun.” I give Marcus another sour look and shut myself in my room. I feel sorry for myself and, amazingly, for Catalina.

On Thursday morning I notice that Fatboy is—for the first time in his well-fed life—off his food. He opens his pink triangle mouth and meows loudly, slinks around my ankles—leaving a fine dusting of orange fur on my black trousers—leaps onto the kitchen surface (Marcus would freak, but he’s still in bed with Catalina), and butts my arm affectionately with his head. But when I open a tin and empty the gunk into his blue china bowl, he sticks his tail in the air like a mast and swaggers off. Then he starts howling. This is a truly terrible noise. It starts as a deep groan and ends as a high-pitched wail. I feel I have failed as a mother. “What?” I say in exasperation.

“Ma-uuaaaaaaaa-w!”

“I’m sorry,” I say crossly, “I don’t understand.” He then—and this is the worst part—goes and sits, like a Sphinx, on the windowsill. And sits and sits, nose facing the garden, bum facing me. When I kiss his head, he gets up irritably and relocates farther along the windowsill. To be honest, he hasn’t been eating much all week, but I thought it was because the summer has suddenly turned summerish and he was hot. Possibly he’s sulking because he doesn’t like the fact I’ve abandoned him for work. “I work to keep you in Whiskas, you lazy pig,” I say before realizing I’m late and running out the door.

I brood all of Thursday morning about Marcus and Fatboy until the afternoon, when I call my mother. There’s no reply. So I start brooding about her. Since the funeral day, I haven’t been very attentive to my mother. That is, I haven’t seen or spoken to her. I should have. But I didn’t want to. I feel as warm and compassionate as a block of ice, I’d have been no good to her anyway. I won’t feel bad, I refuse. Why can’t I cut off for two, three weeks without it being a bloody great issue? Fuck it. I call her mobile. It’s switched off. “Please try again later.” Where is she? I call the house again and let it ring and ring and ring until finally it clicks over to the answer machine. I almost drop the receiver as a voice intones, “You have reached the home of Maurice and Cecelia Bradshaw. We are not available to take your call. Kindly leave a message after the long tone.”

My heart is hammering at such a rate I expect it to explode out of my chest—
my father’s voice.
I replace the receiver and dial again. Then I hunch over my desk, close my eyes, and relish my father’s deep powerful voice. “We are not available…” Mesmerised, I visualize him sitting in his favorite armchair in his study, blithely ignoring the ring-ring because he hates answering the phone. He could still be alive. I listen to his message one more time.

Finally, I leave a message. “Hello, Mum, it’s me. Hope you’re okay. Sorry I haven’t called. I’ve just been mad at work. Give me a ring. Okay. ‘Bye then.” Maybe she’s out shopping with her friend Vivienne. Or gone swimming. This is what I tell myself. But I don’t believe it. I am sitting at my desk and Laetitia is ordering me to ring the book critic to remind her that her copy is a week late and all I can think is that my mother is dead and it’s my fault. She’s had a stroke and is rotting away at the bottom of the stairs. She’s had a car crash and suffered fatal head injuries. (I inherited my driving genes from her.)

I am choked with dread and I just know. I am reminded of a story I skim-read in the
Daily Telegraph
about a man who was stabbed to death on a business trip to Switzerland. His girlfriend, in Sussex, had rung his mobile and he hadn’t answered. “I knew he was dead,” she told the reporter, “at that moment, I knew it, without a shred of doubt.” I read this tale when both my parents were alive and well and annoying and my reaction was, “Huh! She knew, indeed! Lucky chance!” Now, that woman is me. My mother is dead. I need air.

“I’m sorry,” I gasp to an amazed Laetitia and rush out of the office and into the street. I look about wildly, having no clue what I’m doing or where I’m going, run across the road, flop on a wooden bench—“In fond memory of Anthony Bayer, who loved London”—Oh, God, and try to breathe. I feel hot and cold and sick and faint. Five seconds later, Laetitia appears.

“Helen,” she says twitchily, “whatever’s the matter? Did you have a tiff with whatzisname, Jason?” I notice Laetitia stands at a distance so there is no danger of bodily contact.

“My mother is dead!” I whisper.

“You mean your father,” she says.

“My mother. I know it.”

Laetitia clears her throat. “Helen,” she says, “your mother just rang. She asked me to take a message.”

Shit. Laetitia never takes messages. Ever. How excruciatingly embarrassing. I breathe slowly, deeply, and sit up straight. “Thank you, Laetitia, very much,” I say hurriedly.

Laetitia adds briskly, “She said, if you’re free, you could visit her tomorrow evening.” If I’m free? My mother, thinking of someone other than herself? Amazing. I nod and—panic over—meekly follow Laetitia back inside.

When I arrive home, I brace myself for Marcus playing doctors and nurses with Catalina. I am most surprised when Marcus rips open the door as I jiggle the key in the lock, a ferocious expression on his face. Still smarting at the dead dad jibe, I trust. “
Your revolting animal
,” he snarls, “
has shat all over my bed AGAIN
!” He looks as if he wants to hit me.

“Oh, no,” I breathe, proud and delighted at Fatboy’s impressively pertinent social comment. Marcus marches me to the evidence. Fatboy evidently has what my mother refers to as a “runny tummy.” I tut. “Don’t worry,” I say, smiling broadly, “I’ll clear it up.” I skip to the kitchen to fetch rubber gloves and paper towels and wonder how to reward Fatboy. Tuna juice? The coat game? (The coat game is the most tedious game in the world ever and involves me poking an umbrella or a stick under my coat and Fatboy pouncing on it ad infinitum until I die of boredom.) Retching, I scoop up the diarrhea, leaving brown streaky smears over the white cotton. I spy my hero licking his paw from the safety of my bedroom. I am transporting the pooh-towels to the bin when the phone rings. Marcus answers it, then holds the receiver out to me wordlessly.

I wrench off the gloves. “Hello?” I say. Marcus pounces out of the room. “Helen,” weasles a voice which I recognize with a heavy heart as the oily Alan.

“How did you get my number?” I say icily.

“Michelle,” he replies happily.

I’ll kill her. “I assume this isn’t a platonic call,” I say in a bored voice. At this point, Marcus stamps back into the kitchen holding his stinky, bundled-up duvet at arm’s length and stuffs it angrily into the washing machine. He can hear every word I say. So, when Alan asks me if I’d like to join him for “a spot of supper then on to a disco”—a disco!—even though I’d rather shave off my eyebrows and eat a rat sandwich, I say with a loud enthusiasm that must convince Alan I’m schizophrenic, “I’d adore to go out with you on Saturday night.”

As soon as Marcus is out of earshot I press 1471 and inform Alan I’ve changed my mind and our meeting will consist of a quick coffee. Then I call Michelle to give her the biggest, scariest, buttock-clenching earbashing she’s ever experienced in her privileged northwest London life. I start off snapping, “Michelle, I’d prefer it if you don’t give out my number to men I’m not attracted to,” and end up simpering, “No, you’re right, thank you. Yes, a night out with Alan will take my mind off Marcus. And Jasper, yes.”

I tell you. Sometimes, I really hate myself.