No Place For a Man (18 page)

‘I’m saving it for something funny. That OK with you?’

Sarcasm didn’t really merit a reply, Jess considered as she ran water into the glass. She leaned back against the warm towel on the rail and looked at herself in the long mirror. She was wearing her favourite nightwear – a pale purple silk nightdress, quite short, strappy like the kind of summer dresses that only suited slender women under thirty-five. After that, something seemed to go wrong with the upper arms. Perhaps she shouldn’t be wearing this now, not even just for sleeping. Probably she ought to swaddle herself in
all-enveloping winceyette, if such a thing still existed. When the children had been young she’d gone for the Laura Ashley dairymaid look in nightwear, only to have Matt grumbling that he couldn’t actually fancy someone who looked as if they were about to run through the fields cooing at the sheep.

Experimentally, Jess waved at herself as if seeing her reflection off on a journey to see what happened to her arms. A woman at the gym had said she had ‘bye-bye arms’ and explained that when she waved at anyone, her upper arms waved all by themselves as well. Not much of Jess’s flesh flapped around. She was still reasonably firm in the triceps area. ‘And so I should be,’ she thought, prodding at the skin which she’d prefer to be a bit more dewy-textured, less desiccated. ‘All those hours sweating with the weights at the gym …’

‘If I say I’m sorry, will you come and get into bed with me?’ Matt called. He had his penitent-little-boy voice on. It wasn’t appealing, not in a sexy sense anyway. She thought of her mother and the ‘never say no’ advice. Was it worth risking that it might be true? Or was it perfectly reasonable of her not to have sex if she didn’t fancy it?

‘OK,’ she said, returning to Matt and climbing into bed. ‘That boy, Tom, he seemed to enjoy himself, didn’t he?’ she said. Matt stood up and took off his robe, flinging it in the direction of the door where it collapsed in a heap and did not, as Matt had probably hoped, hang itself neatly on the hook like the hat James Bond always flung into Miss Moneypenny’s office.

‘He didn’t give a toss about the chilli. And he loved the chicken kebabs – he was very complimentary. He’s a polite lad, one to be encouraged. Old George likes him too.’

‘Mmm,’ Jess agreed. ‘He doesn’t actually look as if he often gets a proper meal. I get the feeling he lives on junk food and handouts. He makes me want to take care of him, feed him up a bit.’

‘Like a stray cat?’

‘Probably. Maybe I’m just feeling the lack of Oliver around the house. And Natasha seems happy enough. Though I hope she’s not …’

‘She’s only fifteen, Jess, and not daft.’

‘No, I know. But fifteen’s like eighteen used to be now. There’s no point assuming she’s not even curious about sex. I bet the boy is.’

‘No, I suppose not. At the moment though, I’m the one who’s feeling curious about it. Like am I going to get it? I mean I do hope so …’

He switched off the light and snuggled up to her, feeling his way under the purple nightdress and stroking a finger along her inner thigh. The headache was already fading and Jess wondered about what her mother had left out from the advice: there was an unmentioned (and unmentionable in those days probably) ‘because’ element. ‘Never say no, because your body is like an old television set, everything works fine after a bit of a warm-up session …’

Donald the cat hurtled up the stairs miaowing as if a Rottweiler was chasing him. He raced into the attic bedroom and leapt onto the bed, shaking his rain-soaked fur all over Jess’s face.

‘Ugh! Donald get off!’ She pushed him away and he sat beside the bed looking offended and making a start on washing his wet paws. ‘You’ve made muddy footprints all over the bed,’ she told him, leaning down to stroke his ears. He rubbed his face against her hand,
purring happily. Cats have definite smiles sometimes, she thought as she watched him. Sometimes, overcome by the bliss of being petted, Donald even dribbled, though she was under no real illusion that he had come to see her for any other reason than that he considered it was time for her to get up and fill his food bowl. She slid out of bed and pulled on her robe, a white waffle-textured cotton one that was never quite warm enough on chill mornings, and padded out of the room and down the stairs. It was already after nine o’clock. She rarely slept that late, even at weekends. There was no sign of life from the girls’ rooms, but that was perfectly normal for a Saturday morning. Whoever had said that teenagers grow in their sleep was probably right – the girls were already quite tall and, given the choice, would happily linger in bed, Walkmans clamped to their ears till they reached six feet four.

Jess collected the newspaper from the mat by the front door and went back to the kitchen. The rain was making a million tiny rivers intermingle as they trickled down the conservatory windows. As she peered through the glass, Jess could just make out a selection of empty wine bottles on the table outside – the clearing up had been abandoned after everyone in the family had brought in a couple of token items and decided it was getting too cold and dark to bother continuing with it. Her best chopping board was out there too, and a plate with a few slices of tomato being slowly marinaded in rainwater. She wondered what had happened to Paula. After Angie’s choking session and Jess taking her home, Eddy had said he’d get Paula a cab and then led her out into the night.

‘We were lucky it didn’t rain like this last night, weren’t we?’ She made conversation with the cat as
she picked out a sachet of his favourite duck-flavoured food from the cupboard. Donald plaited his ecstatic body around her legs, trying to hurry her up.

‘OK, wait a minute sweetie!’ She put the foul-smelling dish on the floor and the cat pushed his face into his breakfast.

‘No magic word? No “thank you”?’ she teased him as she went to switch on the kettle.

‘Are you talking to the cat?’ Zoe stood in the doorway in an oversized striped tee shirt with her long pale legs looking frailly thin, like seedlings that haven’t had enough light.

‘Of course I am!’ Jess told her, getting another mug out of the cupboard for Zoe. ‘Did nobody tell you it’s bad manners not to talk to the people you’re feeding?’

‘Yeah,
people
,’ Zoe mocked. ‘He’s not
people
.’

‘I’ve heard you talking to him.’ Jess poured boiling water into her favourite teapot: it was pink and had large bold strawberries painted on it. She always felt it was a good one to use when summer was slow getting started, as if it would encourage the weather to ripen the fruit.

Zoe picked up the newspaper and started rummaging through the various sections in search of something with cartoons. ‘I talk to him when I’m telling him off, making him stop sleeping on my clothes, leaving fur and stuff.’

‘You could try putting them away,’ Jess suggested tentatively. It was too early in the day for the ‘when are you going to tidy your room’ routine.

Zoe ignored her, becoming absorbed in the rock-music pages and an interview with Simplicity whose CD she was currently playing to wear-out point.

‘Er, you’re up early for a Saturday,’ Jess commented.

‘Going shopping with Emily. We want to get out early before all the good stuff goes.’

‘Oh, you’ve come into money have you?’ Jess smiled at her. It would be only fair to let her have a bit extra on top of her allowance, after the Selfridge’s expedition with Natasha.

‘No, but Emily has. She hasn’t spent any, well hardly any, of her whole last term’s allowance and she wants me to help her blow it all on clothes. Don’t suppose much will fit her though.’

‘Oh? Why’s that?’ The tea was ready now but Zoe had sat down at the table and was looking serious. She was also chewing at the skin on the edge of her thumb, a sure sign she had something on her mind. Jess sat down opposite her and poured tea for the two of them. Matthew would just have to wait and have it cold or stewed.

Zoe shrugged and looked shifty. ‘Like she’s so skinny? Didn’t you see, last night?’

‘You’re quite thin yourself,’ Jess prompted.

‘Yeah but I eat, she never does, or if she does she sicks it up again. That’s the difference.’ Zoe stood up and picked up her tea, walking quickly towards the door. ‘I’m going to have a bath and get ready.’ From halfway up the stairs she called down, ‘Tash wants to come too, she’s meeting Claire so she might like some tea as well.’

‘OK, room service on the way,’ Jess called back.

Zoe hadn’t needed to say any more. Both she and Jess knew that. Jess had seen the performance over the hamburger the night before – she should have recognized that classic sign of an eating disorder, the meticulous delaying/avoidance ritual with food when in company. She wondered if Angie knew that Emily
wasn’t eating. It was unlikely: anorexics were devious, highly skilled at convincing themselves and those around them that nothing was wrong. Angie might not even notice if Emily had lost weight, even if she hadn’t seen her for a few weeks, for dress-disguise was another starver’s trick. She watched as the cat, full at last, clattered out through the cat flap and huddled on the step, reluctant to go out into the rain. Animals never starve themselves unless they’re dying, she thought, wondering if that was as near proof as you could get that anorexia was a mental, not a chemical problem.

She poured tea for Natasha and Matthew and walked up the stairs. The bathroom door was closed and from the other side of the door she could hear the water running and a DJ on Zoe’s radio being unnaturally exuberant. Jess tapped lightly on Natasha’s door and went in. The blind was down and in the semi-dark there was a mildly musty scent and a hazardous heap of discarded clothes and shoes on the floor between Jess and the bed.

‘Morning Tash, tea for you.’ She picked her way through the obstacles and approached the bed, then her heart lurched with sudden shock as the naked top halves of not one but two figures reared up from the duvet. There was a weird snapshot moment as her eyes gradually captured the sight and her brain slowly and painfully registered that Natasha had Tom in bed with her.

‘Shit,’ was all Tom said.

Natasha rallied some instant defiance. ‘We weren’t
doing
anything!’ she protested at a level that neared a shriek.

‘How the hell did you get in?’ Jess slammed the mug
of tea down on the little chest of drawers beside the bed before her trembling hands dropped it. She took a step back to distance herself from the two of them, stumbling on a shoe. ‘We double-locked all the doors before we went to bed!’

‘Er … sorry, we, um …’ Tom gave a quick giveaway glance towards the window. Jess followed the look and noticed that Natasha’s normally cluttered desktop was completely clear. All her school files, her unfinished homework, pen tray, stack of paper were piled up under the desk.

‘You climbed in? Like a sneaky thief in the night? How dare you? Natasha is
fifteen
! I want you to get out right now! Fast! And by the front door! Don’t you ever,
ever
come back.’ Her voice had risen almost to a scream. She slammed out of the room, shaking, and crashed into Matthew, who was coming down the attic stairs to investigate the noise.

‘What is it? What’s happened?’ He took her hand and led her back up to their room, sitting her on the bed carefully as if she was injured.

Jess, sobbing, pointed out of the door. ‘That boy, Tom – he’s in bed with Natasha. He climbed in through her window!’

Matt, unforgivably, chuckled. ‘Oh very
Romeo and Juliet
,’ he said.

Jess glared at him. ‘What the fuck are you talking about? Natasha and that
boy
are in her bed, neither of them apparently with a stitch on and all you can do is
laugh
?’

Matthew recomposed his face. ‘Sorry, but well, as you said, fifteen is the new eighteen. And at least she’s on the premises, not in the back of some car down a dark alley.’

‘I don’t believe you’re saying this.’ Jess felt genuinely puzzled. ‘Are you saying it’s OK? We had that boy in the house as a guest, fed him, felt sorry for him, all that, and this is what he does, he climbs in through the window and sleeps with our daughter?’

‘Now you’re overreacting. You’re making too much of a drama out of it. Sure, it was a shock. And for double sure it mustn’t happen again. But …’

Jess got up and went into the bathroom to run the shower. She felt the need to be covered in soap, to wash away last night’s sex that now just made her feel sick, picturing Natasha with Tom.

‘I can’t think where “but” comes in,’ she said. ‘You might not feel betrayed, by both of them, but I do.’ She shut the door, and, unusually, locked it. From the other side of the door, just before she turned the taps on to ‘full’ and drowned out both thoughts and words, she heard him say, ‘Oh, it’s all about you is it?’

Zoe stayed in the bath till the water went cold. She hardly dared move. So they knew now. Once she’d thought that might be a relief but it wasn’t at all. The good thing, the end of her having to keep their lousy secret, was ruined by her mother’s anger. She’d heard how much hurt there was in her voice. Natasha had wounded their mum by having Tom in just as much as if she’d punched her in the stomach. Mum being a bit cross about stuff she was well used to – but only the usual small things like not getting up early enough for school in the mornings and having to race around, or not putting stuff away in the kitchen. It occurred to her that this wasn’t at all a house where there were regular major rows. Sometimes girls at school came in in the mornings and sat around in the cloakroom saying
things like ‘Jesus you should have heard the olds last night!’ gathering an enthralled crowd as they described earth-shattering quarrels, doors slamming, plates being broken. Sometimes they’d cry and tell about divorce or a parent who’d packed their bags and walked out.

Zoe had marvelled at the tempestuous atmospheres some of her friends lived in, had even wondered if it would be fun to exist in the brittle air of high drama like a soap opera full of disasters. It was probably why she hadn’t resisted all that much when Emily had dragged her into the non-pregnancy thing. Once or twice she’d even longed for something a bit more lively to happen than the contented day-to-day existence her family seemed to plod along with. When her dad had lost his job, then she’d had something to tell them at school but no-one was very interested. When they’d asked if that meant there’d been a big row and would they be broke and have to move house, all she’d been able to do was shrug and admit that so far, no, nothing had changed. No-one had asked about it again. It really was just like television: only the worst that could happen was of interest to anyone.