Out on a Limb (24 page)

He tried to smile. ‘How very post-feminist of you.’

I didn’t smile back. ‘You can call it what you like, but the truth is that I knew what I was doing and I shouldn’t have done it. Gabriel, we are not in any sort of relationship, you and me. Never have been and never will be. And, yes, you did what you did, and I dare say you’re regretting it. But it’s different for me. Can’t you
see
that? I behaved like a slapper and I hate myself for it, so if you’ll excuse me –’ I got up from the table again, now. ‘– I’ve got to take a shower and you’ve got to go home.’

Gabriel stood up too now. Extra straight, I think, on purpose. His mouth was hanging open. ‘That’s an outrageous thing to say!’

But then he would say that, I thought. Because he didn’t know the half of it. Didn’t know how I’d felt that way already in my life. Didn’t know what it felt like to
be
me. I’m wasn’t even sure I did. All I knew was that right now I felt dirty and ashamed and appalled with myself.

I shrugged. ‘Even so, Gabriel, that’s how I feel.’

‘But, Abbie, it wasn’t
like
that. You shouldn’t
think
that. It just happened. I’m a man and you’re a woman, and well, we’ve both been…’ Been what? But he didn’t seem to know how to begin to explain. ‘Abbie,’ he finished. ‘It just
happened
, okay?’

Which I would, I knew, now have to repent at my leisure. Ad nauseam. But this was pointless. ‘In which case,’ I said stiffly. ‘Let’s
forget
it happened then, shall we?’

‘We can’t leave things like this.’

‘What other way would you have us leave things? Come on, please. Let’s not drag this out any longer. Like you say, it was a moment of madness, and it’s done now. We can’t undo it, can we?’

I was already walking out into the hall at this point, and he followed me, reaching across me to collect his jacket from the newel post. ‘Look,’ he said, once he’d shrugged it over his shoulders. ‘Abbie. Please don’t hate yourself. You know, I really want you to know that even if anything
had
happened…well, I wouldn’t have thought any less of you. Not one iota.
Ever
. You do know that, don’t you?’

It was such a wild and ridiculous scenario – him standing there, etching out the cosy hypothetical emotional aftermath of a rash hypothetical coupling on my kitchen floor – that I almost couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud. Wasn’t that the ploy most men used as
fore
play? Except he was really in earnest and it really did seem to matter. I wanted to touch him but I dared not. ‘Gabriel, don’t stress. It was
never
going to happen. You’re way too nice a man.’

He looked sad. In disgrace. Ashamed of himself. ‘I’m not that.’

‘You just
proved
it. And I’m sure Lucy knows it too. She’s a lucky woman. Hey, you take care of that knee, now.’

He negotiate d the front step and started limping down the path. Then he turned. ‘So I’ll see you in clinic next week, then.’

I was already closing the front door, so I didn’t answer. No point. I already knew he wouldn’t.

When I got back into the kitchen, I saw the letter about Seb still sitting on the table. I put it in an envelope, wrote out the address, affixed first class stamps, added ‘Airmail’ and double underlined it, then walked Spike to the letterbox and slipped the thing in. I’d just have to hope he had a friend who spoke some English. Because I no longer had one who spoke Italian.

* * *

Which just goes to show that weatherm en, however impressively tooled-up with education and intelligence and complex statistics, do not have a monopoly in predicting the future. Us mere mortals, with our reliance upon instinct and feelings, can be almost – no, probably
are
– as good.

Which insight did nothing to make the day any less depressing. It only led me down avenues I didn’t much want to travel. Because all of them led to exactly the same place. My shame. My guilt. My disgust with myself. My utter conviction, once I’d dissected things properly, that this was not Gabriel’s fault. It was mine. That, entirely without meaning to, I had, in fact, seduced him. Like he’d said – oh, cruel irony – swept him off his feet.

It wasn’t his fault. He was a man. He couldn’t help it. I, on the other hand,
could
. The most ridiculous piece of nineteenth-century garbage ever thought up. I
knew
that. It didn’t matter. That’s still how I felt. And they say we women are emancipated. I wish. Oh, I
wish
.

Which was a shame because this day had already been made depressing enough, what with being bookended by Welsh men-and-sheep jokes at one end and the prospect of my mother’s return at the other.

In fact, Pru and my mother have already arrived by the time I get in from work. They’ve made themselves tea and bought a bag of Welsh cakes, which they are chomping as I enter the kitchen. Dancing Diana is still in the hall where I left her, parked up and gurning beside the dining room door. Oh, the sorry tales she could tell.

Pru gets up to pour a mug of tea for me too.

‘I hope you’re going to move that thing,’ my mother says irritably, nodding towards the open kitchen doorway. ‘I nearly had forty fits when I saw it. Wherever did you get it from?’

‘Gabriel Ash dropped it round,’ I say, feigning a workaday lightness when I mention his name that’s feeling ever more difficult to do. ‘Corinne found it in the garage. She thought you might want it.’

‘
Want
it? Abigail, when you get to my time of life, you will come to appreciate that looking at pictures of oneself in the full flush of beauty is about as horrendous a torture that has ever been devised.’

I can think of worse. Far worse. But this
is
from a woman who would only countenance mirror sunglasses if the mirrors were on the inside. Not that I’d know, in any case. I never did have what you might call a ‘full flush’ of beauty in my youth. It wasn’t a given. It always felt like a privilege if any one thought I was pretty. Just pockets here and there when the lighting fell right and I conceded I would basically
do
.

A long and deep pocket in the case of Charlie, admittedly. But that was just a blip. And a damaging one, too. My experience with Gabriel confirms it. Overall (and how much I’d like to return to that state), I’ve not been used to feeling like that. Not been used to that sort of attention on a regular basis. With Rob, yes, but he was a notable exception. And it was quite possibly why I loved him so much. Because he didn’t fancy my mother. What I mostly remember was the dropped jaws of boyfriends when they called round to take me to the pictures.

And I do concede that for my mother the passage of time must hang heavier than for most people. If your self-esteem is so closely connected with your beauty, then it s fading must be difficult to bear.

‘Why d’you hang on to it, then?’ I ask her.

She shakes her head. ‘I didn’t. That was Hugo. He had a bit of a thing about lurex.’ She mimes quote marks around ‘thing’ and accompanies them with the sort of face that’s best not enquired into. So we don’t. Not her sex life with Hugo, pur-lease. ‘Anyway,’ she says. ‘How is my poor precious grandson?’

Pru puts tea in front of me. ‘He’s just fine,’ I tell them both, happy to move on to less difficult ground now. ‘Quite happy to abort the grand tour for a while, to be honest. He’s looking way too skinny. Oh, and he’s grown a beard, would you believe? Hang on. I’ve got a picture in my mobile.’ I pull it from my bag and find it.

Pru shrieks when she sees it. ‘God, you’d hardly recognise him!’

‘I almost didn’t. I tell you, Pru, there is nothing that makes you face up to your terrible age than seeing your child with a beard.’

Or indeed, contemplating your ageing mother as a housemate.

‘She said anything to you?’ I ask Pru while she tootles off upstairs for her reading glasses, the better to do the clutch of Su Dokus that have stockpiled while we’ve both been away.

Pru glances towards the stairs. ‘Actually, I don’t want to worry you, Sis, but, yes. She was asking Doug about loft conversions last night.’

‘Loft conversions? But you’ve already got a loft conversion–’

‘Er, wakey-wakey. Hello? Engage brain. Not as in my place. As in
here
.’

She moves her eyes heavenwards again, and this time, so do I. ‘
What
?’ I squeak. ‘As in here? As in
my
house?’

Pru nods. ‘Well, she didn’t actually admit as much, of course. She wouldn’t risk it. Just told him she was investigating possibilities. She was grilling him about how much it would cost and everything – you know she’s had the cheque through, don’t you? No, actually. You probably don’t. Anyway, she has. And she’s clearly got her own ideas about what she wants to do with it.’

‘Oh, gawd.’ I groan. ‘Has she said anything to you about it?’

Pru shakes her head. ‘But I’ve been doing my bit, promise. I spent half the journey here today banging on about how much you’re looking forward to having a bit of independence in a couple of years or so – you know, after spending so many years devotedly and slavishly looking after the boys, and what with the divorce, and Rob always having been away so much anyway, and how you really deserve to have some time to yourself, a chance to do all the things you’ve never been able to, to travel and see the world and have fun blah blah blah.’

‘God, you make me sound like I’ve been Mother Theresa.’

‘Well, I thought I’d lay it on a bit. Make her think. Make her see things from where
you
stand. Clear the way a bit.’

‘And what did she say?’

Pru tips her head back and snorts at me. ‘She said she’d always known that you married the wrong man.’

* * *

Pru leaves a little after six, having had a promise extracted that she will, if at all possible, come to see One Black Lung play (from Jake), and another that she’ll persist with project Mother (from me).

Mum and I go out on to the doorstep to see her off, and in doing so, the very first thing that catches my eye is the loft conversion the Thomas es across the road had done last year, evidenced by two Velux windows amid the roof slates, both with gay yellow roller blinds, at present half closed, to shut out the glare of the low late September sun. I’ve been up there. It’s nice. I think they call it their den. At one time, I might have considered one too. Early on, it was. My post-partum post-impressionist period. When the boys were both small and I only worked part-time and still nursed vague dreams of Doing a Bit of Art.

But now I look across the road and I fashion a bleak (and wholly artless) future, a sort of Jane Eyre/Mrs Danvers in Rebecca type amalgam, in which mother sits in the attic, jotting car registrations, and periodically rapping on the floor with a stick. I’m down in the kitchen, of course, boiling bones to make broth and harbouring unspeakable thoughts.

‘Now,’ she says, stepping back inside. ‘Time I had my lie down, I think. I’ve promised to be at Kenneth’s by seven.’

I follow her indoors. ‘Kenneth? Kenneth who?’

‘Kenneth, your neighbour?’

‘What, you mean Mr Davidson?’

She looks at herself coquettishly in the hall mirror. ‘Correct. I’m going round to help him with some postures.’

‘Mr Davidson? Postures? What sort of postures?’ The mind seriously boggles.

She looks at me via the mirror and rolls her eyes. ‘Well,
yoga
postures, obviously.’

‘You’re teaching him
yoga
?’

She narrows her eyes. ‘I don’t know why you find that concept so funny, Abigail. You know, you’d do well to be altogether less judgemental generally, in my opinion. He’s a very pleasant man.’

‘Yeah, right, M um.’ And then I have a thought. ‘You don’t – I mean, you and him…’

‘Oh, for pity’s sake!
No
. Honestly, Abigail, the way your mind works is beyond me.’

Still, it does occur to me that Mum working the Garland charms next door will be no bad thing in the short-term at least, as Jake’s gig is less than a fortnight away now and they’ll be rehearsing their play list with a vengeance. With any luck she’ll put Mr Davidson in a deep yogic trance, from which he won’t emerge until November.

Chapter 24

E
MAIL
;

Hi all!

Writing to you from my office, would you believe! Well, it’s not so much an office as a desk in the corner of someone else’s office, but it’s great. I even have a view of the med! Am feeling just fine, thanks (thanks for card, nana!). Weather glorious etc. etc. Jon’s left now – gone off to join up with Mal and Sean. Am planning couple days with them next w/end if I can do it – they’re going on some jetskiing tour.

Was REALLY good to see you, mum (xxxxxxxx). Thanks for bringing clothes etc. Much appreciated. Hope OBL do great tomorrow night. Sure they will. Will be thinking of you all. Make a CD for me, J!

S xx

Late Sunday afternoon, and against all predictions, expectations and forecasts, an air of almost palpable excitement is growing in the McFadden household.

Which is something of a relief. It’s been almost three weeks since my last brush with Gabriel Ash. But however deeply he’s burrowed his way under my skin, I’m relieved to find I’m made of stern enough stuff that I can just about manage to itch without scratching. Compartmentalise, even. Put the whole sorry charade to one side. Just as headaches can be healed by putting pins in one’s buttocks, so the dull ache of unrequited romantic yearnings can be to some extent soothed by a robust concentration on all the wonderful things that one has in one’s life.

And I do. And it works. For the moment at least. And it seems to be cumulative too. Jake is excited, thus I am excited. Even Spike is excited because he’s very intelligent and knows excitement invariably means extra choc drops and hugs. Sadly, however, there is an air of an entirely different flavour emanating from the phone. Ten past six and I pick up the receiver in my bedroom to find Dee hissing at me in a most un-Dee-like way.

‘Abbie?’

‘Dee? What is it? What’s the matter?’

Her voice is so low as to be barely audible. Not good. ‘I need a favour. Can you come round? As in
now
? Can you come round and get me?’

Double not good. ‘Get you? Where are you?’

‘At home. In the en suite. And Malcolm’s…’ She takes a breath. ‘Malcolm’s taken my handbag and my car keys and everything, and I don’t have any money and I don’t know what to do. And if I don’t get out of here soon something bad is going to happen, and I can’t get hold of Tim, and –’

Oh, God. ‘Dee, what’s happening? What’s going on?’

‘I told him.’

‘What, everything?’

‘Yes, everything. God, I’m so
stupid
, Abs. What possessed me? Why didn’t I do it somewhere public? Abs, I’m scared.’

As well she might be. ‘Okay, so just
leave
. Just get out of there.
Go
. Start walking and I’ll leave now and I can…’

‘I
can’t
. I daren’t even go downstairs! He’s smashed. He’s gone ballistic. He’s bolted the front door and he’s thrown stuff and… God, Abbie, you’ve
got
to –’

‘Okay, okay. I’m coming! I’ll –’

Click. A new voice. ‘Hello?’

Oh, typical. ‘Mum,’ I say. ‘I’m on the line right now.’

‘Oh, I see. I do beg your pardon.’ Another click.

‘Dee?’

‘I’m still here.’

‘Are you calling from your mobile?’

‘Yes. Thank God. It was on the charger in the bedroom.’

‘Good. Right. Stay put. I’m on my way.’

I negotiate the stair treads two at a time. My mother is standing at the foot of them.

‘Something the matter?’ she enquires over the top of her reading glasses.

Should I call the police, perhaps ? Now? Before I leave? ‘Yes, actually,’ I answer, pulling my jacket from the newel post. ‘I have to go round to Dee’s house.’

‘Only I wanted to know if you might be able to give Celeste and I a lift to Wilfred’s on your way to the show.’

‘Um …er…I don’t know, Mum. It depends on –’

‘
Gig
, Nan,’ says Jake, emerging from the kitchen with some drumsticks. ‘It’s not called a show. It’s called a gig.’

‘Ah, Jake,’ I say, turning to him while I pull on my jacket and start looking for my bag. ‘I’ve got to pop over to Dee’s. What time do we have to leave here to set up?’ My heart, I realise, has already started thumping. Yes, police? No, police? No, police, I decide. It cannot be that bad. Bad but not
that
bad, surely. Can it?

‘Like, in half an
hour
, Mum!’ says Jake, following me back into the kitchen. ‘How long are you going to be?’

‘…for Brian’s birthday,’ continues my mother. ‘Only we can’t go to Brian’s because he’s had a flood in his kitchen…it’s not too much further. It’s only in –’

‘Nan,’ Jake explains, ‘we can’t fit you in. Not with the drum kit. There isn’t enough room. Mum, you’ve
got
to be back, okay?’

‘Yes I know. And I will. Don’t worry,’ I tell him, grabbing my mobile from its charger. ‘Straight there, straight back. No need to fret.’

And perhaps I’m right, at that. Because when I get to Dee’s road there’s certainly no sign that anything bad has happened. No flashing lights. No gaggle of concerned neighbours at the gate. No pressmen or riot vans or packs of sniffer dogs or cordons. The house stands, in the watery remnants of a low October sun, as still and serene as any one of its fellows. As houses do. From the outside. Like marriages, I guess.

Which is precisely why I ignore the evidence of my eyes and park the car expecting the worst. This day, I think, as I clamber out and stride purposefully across the road towards their house, has been too long in coming. Dee must be – I calculate – some eighteen or nineteen weeks pregnant. Almost beyond the point that even an idiot could fail to notice. She’s been putting it off, I know, and I understand her reasons. There was never going to be a right time to do this. I unlatch the gate and push it open. I don’t know where Malcolm is, of course, but if he’s in there, there’s at least some chance he’s watching me do so, and I want him to know I mean business.

Malcolm, who works at the sort of impenetrable job of being something in procurement services for the council (beats me), is quite a big man. Six foot-ish, fairly beefy, good at hefting and digging and also, or so I am informed by Dee, currently drunk. Nothing new there, then. He very often is. Which presents a somewhat worrisome picture. But though I am only five foot five inches tall, slight-to-average of build and not particularly tough, there is one thing that both of us know. That I am not frightened of Malcolm.

This certainty (and the action I’m taking as a consequence) might, of course, prove to be my bloody undoing very shortly, but somehow I think not. I have known Malcolm for over a decade; known him jolly, known him cross, known him drunk and known him sober. I have known him be aggressive to Dee on numerous occasions, known him scare her with words if not actually with deeds. But I have never known him raise so much as an eyebrow at anyone else, and he’s certainly never behaved badly towards me. Not in public and not in private. Not ever. He wouldn’t dare.

In fact, sometimes I wonder if the opposite is true. And that Malcolm’s just a little scared of me. It’s a comforting thought, even if it’s fiction. I walk up the path and press my finger on the doorbell for a full and reassuringly sonorous ten seconds – I hope she’s heard it – and step back as I wait for him to answer the door.

Which is precisely what he does, and in double quick time, sliding back the bolts and smiling easily and readily as he swings the front door back to greet me.

Malcolm, who is dressed now in lichen-coloured cords and a loose black sweatshirt, is what I think experts usually call a ‘well-preserved’ alcoholic. He goes off to work, he functions when he gets there, he is socially competent among his friends (at least till he’s downed the first six or so, by which time everyone else is generally too merry themselves to notice that he’s two pints ahead at-all-times), and his outburst in the pasta place and the vinegar aside, anyone who didn’t know either of them well wouldn’t know that in private he lives a parallel life in which he mostly enjoys the company of his good friend Mr Daniels and his busty and Teutonic pal, Stella. Most important, however, for my purposes right now at least, is that he’s well aware that I
do
. And also that the consequences of me broadcasting the fact are potentially the end of the whole sorry charade.

Though now we’re where we are (Dee pregnant. Dee divorcing him), it suddenly occurs to me that everything’s changed. He’s already lost much of what he was so anxious not to lose. Which means he has less to lose now. Perhaps I should be frightened after all.

Except my best friend needs me not to be. I swallow and then I smile. ‘Hi, Malcolm,’ I say nicely. ‘Is Dee there?’

‘I’m sorry,’ he says, looking for all the world like he means it. Looking perfectly personable and almost sober, in fact. The only evidence that he isn’t is pretty hard to spot. He keeps his trembling hands fixed; one in pocket, one on door jamb. He shakes his head instead. ‘She’s gone out.’

‘Oh?’ I say, glancing at her car parked in the road. I gesture towards it. ‘Are you sure?’

He glances, then. Past me. Then nods. ‘Yes, I’m sure.’

I take a deep breath, happily conscious as I do so that there is a woman walking past the house right about now. I have to hope she’d see if I was yanked inside by my hair. ‘That’s strange,’ I say, scratching my head. ‘She just rang me. Ten minutes back. We’re supposed to be going out. Er… Jake’s gig?’ He looks at me blankly.

I look straight on back. ‘She didn’t mention?’ I go on, brow now furrowed. ‘I said I’d be straight here. Are you
absolutely
sure?’

Where is she? Where
is
she? I can see his brain whirring. She’s called me. He’s cornered. He knows full well now that I’m fully aware. But thankfully, we don’t have to take things any further, because Dee now appears at the head of the stairs, holding her mobile in one hand and her stomach in the other.

‘Ah! There you are!’ I say, smiling nicely at Malcolm. ‘Are you ready? Come on.’ I make a big show of consulting my watch. ‘It’s getting late.’

Dee starts down the stairs, pale-faced but managing to get sufficiently with the programme. ‘I’ll just grab my coat,’ she says.

‘And your bag,’ I remind her.

‘Ah,’ she says, casting about. ‘I think I left it in the kitchen. Hang on. Won’t be long.’ She heads down the hallway.

‘Lounge,’ Malcolm growls at her. ‘You left it in the lounge.’

We hear Malcolm shut the front door almost as soon as we turn to walk back down the path. He’s said nothing more to either of us and I’m mightily glad of it. In fact I’m really quite astounded that it all went so smoothly. That we got her out with so little confrontation.

‘Bloody
hell
,’ says Dee, rummaging feverishly in her handbag as she climbs into my passenger seat. ‘They’re not here.’

‘What aren’t?’

‘My car keys. The sod’s taken them. What the hell am I going to do now?’

I start the engine. ‘What’s going on, Dee?’

She jangles her key ring in my face. ‘He’s taken them off. Look! The bloody sod!’ She thrusts them back into her bag and dumps it angrily down into the footwell. ‘That’s it. That’s the absolute last straw. I’m not going back, you know. Not tonight. Not
ever
. Oh, God, Abs. I so need this to be over.’

‘You’re telling me!’ I release the handbrake and flip down the indicator. ‘Never mind. We’ll get you back to mine and then you can –’

‘Oh, Lord!’ she cries suddenly. ‘Oh, I don’t
believe
it!’

‘What?’ I dip my head and strain to see out, beyond her. So much for it being so unbelievably simple. Malcolm, who clearly has a fine nose for farce, is lobbing clothes – Dee’s clothes – out of the bedroom window.

It takes a good ten minutes to gather up all Dee’s possessions. Not just her clothes, but all her make-up, her books, a bunch of magazines, shoes. Everything, in short, that he can readily lay hands on. And all of which, being without bags in which to put it, we have no choice but to dump, in a muddle, in the boot.

It’s now ten to seven. And I am seriously stressed.

‘Right,’ I say, starting the engine once more. ‘Home. And we’d better get our skates on or I’m for the chop.’

Dee swivels. Checks her watch. ‘Can’t you drop me at Tim’s?’

‘I thought you said you couldn’t get hold of him?’

‘I couldn’t. I can’t. His phone’s off. I think he’s working on an installation or something. But he’ll be back soon enough, I’m sure. Please? It won’t take long.’

‘Dee, I
can’t
take you to Tim’s. I have to get back to take Jake to his gig.’

She chews her lip. Checks the time. ‘It’s not far.’

‘Dee, I know that. But far enough. And besides, if he’s not in – and you have no reason to suppose he will be, have you? – I can’t just leave you sitting on his doorstep, can I? Supposing he has to work late? Suppose he’s been held up somewhere? Come on – let’s get you back to mine, okay? I’m sure he won’t mind collecting you from there, will he? Besides, I really do have to get back, Dee. I have to get Jake’s drum kit down to the club or there’s going to be all sorts of trouble.’

As if a telepathic prompt, my own mobile starts ringing at this point. Dee answers it and listens. ‘It’s Jake,’ she says, finally. ‘Look, Mum’s driving, Jake. Can I take a…yes. Yes, okay…Right…okay, then…yup…okay, I’ll tell her.’

She disconnects. ‘He’s okay. His friend’s dad is going to pick him up and take the kit down there. He said he’d see you there.’

So I take her to Tim’s house, which is out towards Radyr. But Tim, as predicted, is still not at home.

‘Dee, I can’t leave you here. No. I
won’t
leave you here. It’s dark and it’s cold and it’s beginning to rain and there’s absolutely nowhere to shelter. I’m going to take you back to my house, and as soon as you get hold of him, you can have him come and pick you up from there.’

‘But what about Malcolm?’

‘What
about
Malcolm?’

‘Isn’t that just where he’ll expect me to be? Supposing he turns up there?’

She does have a point. But I shake my head firmly. ‘I’m quite sure he won’t.’

She looks unconvinced. As I guess she well might. I’m pretty unconvinced myself. Anything could happen.